Innovation

Seribu Paras was established in 2019 through concern for people with Down Syndrome from the founder Go Cindy. Having a passion for disability, especially Down Syndrome, she always believes that everyone is equal. Through their slogan of #AkuKamuSetara (“You and Me are Equal”), Seribu Paras believes that we all have the same “two eyes, one mouth, two ears” and thus everyone is entitled to equal opportunities for all aspects of life.

Seribu Paras is formed with the vision of achieving an Indonesian society that promotes inclusivity for people with Down Syndrome and has a mission to create varied employment opportunities and equip them with all the skills and knowledge to meet the market demand. Moreover, it aims to create social awareness of Down Syndrome in how to interact and communicate with them which can lead to social inclusivity.

The initial business plan was on the clothing line, yet with the pandemic that hits in 2020, all the initial plan and offline event were canceled and made Seribu Paras needs to see things differently as or so-called blessing in disguise by the founder.

Generally, there are 2 (two) distinguished audiences and main activities of Seribu Paras;

1. Internal stakeholders, which are people with Down Syndrome or often called Seribu Paras Talents. Several activities were built to equip these talents to face the employment demand, such as:

• Upskilling them through various weekly workshops. In fact, people with Down Syndrome have a maximum IQ of 70 which caused them to be slower than typical people. And one of the difficulties faced by these talents is public speaking. Therefore, Public Speaking serves as a basic and mandatory workshop held for 3 sessions and facilitated by Becky Tumewu (Founder, Main Facilitator of TALKinc, Certified Professional Coach, and Public Speaker) and Michael Tjandra (Journalist, News Anchor RTV, and Public Speaker). Aside from public speaking, other workshops conducted include drawing, photography, photoshoot, runway, and modeling taught by a professional model which aims to build their confidence and competencies and also develop skills for their talents;
• Creating merchandise and selling them to the public, such as designing clothes, tumblers, bowls, and glass.

2. External stakeholders, including all the brands and businesses that do a collaboration with Seribu Paras. Go Cindy, as the founder believes that through collaboration; the social awareness of people with Down Syndrome, and the brand itself; Seribu Paras can be sustained for the long term. The business model of this collaboration activity is by creating the campaign together and through profit sharing (i.e., 20% of the profit will be given to Seribu Paras talents as their salary). The timeline is every 3 (three) months to have a new brand collaboration (i.e., 4 brands in a year). Some collaborations include:

• Collaboration with F&B brands (e.g., R&B tea), clothing brands (Aye & Co Denim), and beauty brands (Scarlett Whitening) in Indonesia;
• Internship program in R&B tea & other brands' offline stores.

Eventually, the founder made sure that the talents were able to create good quality merchandise and deliver the great soft skills required, so people want to buy the product or hire them because of its quality and not based on pity because of their condition. In the future, Go Cindy wishes that all their talents could increase their well-being, either become an entrepreneur or have the equal opportunity to compete with the normal employment seeker and gain an equal opportunity of employment.

Inspiration

According to the national statistics, there are about 300,000 people in Indonesia who lives with Down Syndrome. And whilst Indonesia reformed its Disability Law in 2016 by promoting decent work for people with disabilities, still the majority are still living dependent, lacking opportunities for employment and social inclusion. Moreover, there are still limited awareness and public education on how to interact and communicate with these people. While in fact, how others react towards them is important in the inclusion of people with Down Syndrome within society and pivotal to help improve their quality of life.

Seribu Paras appears to provide varied employment opportunities for these people. The name Seribu Paras (“A Thousand Faces”) was chosen as people with Down Syndrome have facial features that resemble one another around the world. This is in accordance with their values, where Seribu Paras believes that everyone should have the same opportunity to work and be treated equally like any other typical people within the society.

Big heart, passion, and social purposes are what have driven Go Cindy to come this far to pass the same passion to these talents. By having communication with both parents and these talents daily, she is able to understand the perspective from both sides which she would love to share with the world. Most of the parents believe that Seribu Paras helps the kids to be more independent, especially when one day they are getting old and could not be there to support the kids. Also, many of these talents show their excitement with all the opportunities they get as evidenced by their full energy during the internship, runway, and the excitement of taking their parents to dine out with their salary.

The same spirit brought many brands in Indonesia to contribute to Seribu Paras by creating a collaboration campaign together. Not only by creating design together as such, but these brands also offer paid internship programs for these talents to gain knowledge, and confidence and guide them to reach their maximum potential.

Eventually, the end game for Seribu Paras is to ensure that many companies hire these talents and for Indonesia to move positively and steadily towards the creation of an inclusive society. Therefore, people with Down Syndrome will be able to live independently and be free of the negative label they are carrying now.

Overall impact

Seribu Paras has given a positive contribution and progress since its first establishment in 2019, as such:

1. Conduct various workshops weekly as listed below to upgrade the skills, knowledge and competencies of people with Down Syndrome;

• Public Speaking
• Modeling
• Drawing
• Photoshoot and Photography

2. Total of 60 people has joined the workshops to gain skills, competencies, and knowledge at Seribu Paras;

3. Create employment opportunities for an average of 50 people with Down Syndrome through:

• Collaboration with brands (i.e., with a timeline of every 3 (three) months for each campaign)
• Internship program
• Creation of merchandise such as tumblers, glass, bowls, t-shirts

4. Provide an opportunity for the talents to experience JFW (Jakarta Fashion Week) 2020 and photoshoot session for their clothing line LookBook.

Business benefit

With the ups and downs of Seribu Paras, they are able to grow the business steadily. This is evidenced by having the team growing with 8 employees managing their talents. Also, by providing jobs for 50 people with Down Syndrome through collaboration with other brands, internship programs, and the creation of merchandise sold to the public. By doing this, Seribu Paras has inevitably taken steps to upskill these talents, enable them to control their financial statements, and therefore contributed towards their independence and promote inclusion within the society.

Social and environmental benefit

Go Cindy, the founder of Seribu Paras wants to pass on the spirit and passion of empowerment to these talents. She wants them to feel confident, empowered with their upgraded skills, and ready to embark on their future journey within society. Again, all of these are built based on the vision to achieve an Indonesian community that promotes an inclusive society for people with Down Syndrome.

Its initial launch project of participating in the JFW through its clothing line attracts people and many brands to be interested and aware of people with Down Syndrome, and what they are capable of. In the future, it is expected through many activations and social awareness created by Seribu Paras, it will provide more equal opportunities for people with Down Syndrome in aspects of life and lead them to have bright and fruitful futures.

Interview

Go Cindy, Founder of Seribu Paras