Making Links: Crafting Creativity and Collaboration.

As unemployment figures continue to rise in Indonesia, the 8th United Nations’ SDG, which promotes inclusive and economic growth, employment, and decent work for all remains relevant today. The creative industry is one of the most influential sectors, where creativity and innovation play an important role as key drivers to economic development. In Indonesian contexts, the strategy is to develop and increase the number of SMEs by connecting communities and promoting local products rich with identity and culture. However, in order to mitigate against the exploitation of local culture, a critical, and democratic approach to creative initiatives must consider the context and those who work within it. This paper explores how the economic livelihoods of craft-makers in Indonesia can be improved by developing appropriate collaborations, promoting co-creative design thinking and fair-trade principles as important aspects for export trade. The Making Links 5 project was initiated to collectively build power together with the craft-makers by facilitating design thinking through making workshops. The collaborative team of five women from the UK and Indonesia brought a wealth of knowledge about design thinking, jewellery-making, fair trade, collaborative learning, craft cooperatives and international export. Initial workshops took place in 2019 in Jombang, East Java, a rural area famous for its recycled glass bead making. Unfortunately, further physical workshops were prevented due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In order to stay connected the Making Links team experimented and tested methods, toolkits and resources, developed to train trainers in Indonesia through organized activities virtually.