Marsi Cemani

Explore Marsi Cemani’s handicrafts at our Fair Trade Shop and bakery. Discover her handmade pouches, bags, toys, bracelets, headbands, canvas books, eco-bags, and straws. In 2010 she started selling her products, exclusively at ViaVia. With this income, she covers the costs of her family.

The woman whose artisan work is now sold for money spent her young years living on the streets. “My child- hood was like that of thousands of street children around the world,” says Marsi. It never crossed her mind that one day she would become an art and craft teacher and that people would call her ‘the mother of the homeless’. So what changed the course of Marsi’s life so dramatically?

Overlooked by society, street children are often targeted in ways that perpetuate gross abuses of human rights. This was also the case for Marsi. To satisfy her hunger, Marsi made and sold small handicrafts in the streets. She first learned how to make crafts independently by herself and later she joined the social community at

Milas. Milas is part of a project center for street youth. They give lunch and snacks for free and provide material for handicrafts. They are very helpful and have a good reputation. Milas is also a restaurant which focuses on meat-free cooking including Indonesian mains, burgers, sandwiches, salads, and desserts. To develop her craft skills, she took many private lessons with Milas in 1998, where Abby gave her a thorough training. This was necessary because she still had to learn everything. Marsi wanted to be very skilled at making handicrafts. She persisted because she was also passionate and very dedicated.

She got married a few years later. Now she has a husband and two children, but she still feels poor. Her husband sells handicrafts at Malioboro (not her crafts, only leather), he also grew up as a street child but comes from a different community. She is very happy that she can sell her own

handiwork in the ViaVia shop and can deliver eco bags to the ViaVia bakery.