10 Years of House of Diamonds: What We Have Learned Along the Way

It is hard to believe that House of Diamonds has been running for 10 years.

When we started HOD, we knew we wanted to create work for women. We wanted the work to be meaningful, fairly paid, and something they could do while still taking care of their families.

But honestly, we didn't have everything figured out.

A lot of what we understand about our work today has come from doing it. From working alongside the women, seeing how they learn, how they struggle, how they grow, and sometimes how they leave us to start something of their own.

After 10 years, I think we understand our purpose a little differently.

It is still about livelihood.

But we have come to see that it is not only about income.

What has happened in 10 years

Over these 10 years, 74 women have received sewing training through HOD as a pathway toward sustainable livelihood.

From them, 30 women became part of the HOD team. Some work from their homes through our hybrid system, and some work from our headquarters.

But their journeys didn't all look the same.

15 of them eventually became financially independent and decided to start their own home-based businesses.

And 15 are still working with us today, continuing to build HOD alongside us and developing their skills as skilled workers and textile artisans.

For us, this is something important to acknowledge.

We don't believe that success means someone has to stay with HOD forever.

If someone comes to HOD, learns a skill, becomes more confident, becomes financially stronger, and eventually feels ready to build her own business, I think that is also a good outcome.

HOD can be a place where people grow, even if eventually their journey takes them somewhere else.

And for those who stay, we want to keep asking ourselves: how can we help them grow further?

From our neighbourhood to 14 countries

The things made by these women have also travelled much further than we expected.

Today, HOD has six wholesale and consignment partners, and our customers have come from 14 countries.

By the end of 2024, we had sold 2,010 blankets, not including the wearables and accessories we have produced over the years.

Our blankets are still one of the products I feel most connected to.

Because they take time.

They are not made in a few minutes on a production line.

There is cutting, sewing, checking, handstitching, fixing mistakes, and learning how to make the next one better.

So when I see a blanket being used in someone's home in another country, I always think about the woman who made it.

Her hands are part of that story.

Then COVID happened

Of course, our 10 years were not all smooth.

COVID was probably one of the biggest tests for HOD.

Our normal production was affected, and we had to find a way to keep the women working.

So we made masks.

A lot of masks.

During 2020–2021, HOD produced and sold around 38,000 cotton masks. They were distributed locally in Indonesia, and some were also sent to the United States and Australia.

Masks were not really what HOD was known for. But at that time, it didn't matter.

We needed to keep working.

The revenue from the masks became one of the things that helped HOD survive the crisis and keep our production going.

During the COVID period through 2024, we also worked with local facilitators in different parts of Indonesia to provide training for more than 1,500 people who were developing small in-house businesses.

Looking back, I think COVID taught us something about the value of having a small, flexible business.

We were able to change what we made, find a new market, and keep people working when many things around us were uncertain.

Sometimes impact looks like a house

There are also things we don't usually put into our business numbers.

For example, two women from our HOD team, Alfia and Ririn, have been able to purchase their first homes.

We think this is one of those things that makes the meaning of economic empowerment very real.

It is easy to talk about income, livelihood, and financial independence.

But sometimes you can see it in something very simple:

Someone finally has a house of her own.

Alfia

Alfiah is one of the most diligent and disciplined women I know.

Her mother passed away when she was still little, and she stopped her education after elementary school.

At 13 years old, she started working in a garment factory.

She moved from one factory to another over the years.

When she came to HOD, she was already married and had one daughter. Her husband worked as a cigarette salesman and his income depended on how much he could sell.

Before HOD, Alfia was sewing from home using a very basic sewing machine.

She was paid around US$0.0078 for sewing one shirt.

To make enough money, she had to sew hundreds of pieces.

It was a lot of work for very little income.

She came to HOD in 2017 after seeing her neighbor sewing our handstitched blankets.

At that time, she also had a large debt from the medical cost of giving birth.

She came to us because she hoped she could earn better.

And she learned very quickly.

She was neat. She was disciplined. She worked hard.

Within one year of working with HOD, she was able to pay off her medical debt.

Over the years, things slowly became better for her family.

In 2019, she had her second child. Together with her husband's income and the savings she had built through her work at HOD, they were eventually able to purchase their first house.

For me, that is a very meaningful part of her story.

Not because owning a house is the ultimate definition of success.

But because we know where she started.

And now, she has a home for her family.

Alfia has been working with HOD for eight years now.

And what makes me even happier is hearing her talk about her daughter.

She wants her daughter to have the opportunity to pursue higher education. She dreams that one day her daughter can become a pediatrician.

Maybe this is one of the things we don't always think about when we talk about livelihood.

When one person's situation changes, sometimes the dream of the next generation changes too.

 

Ririn

Ririn's story is different.

Before HOD, she worked in a garment factory as an administrative worker in the warehouse.

Her working hours were long. She could start at 7:30 in the morning and finish around 6:30 in the evening, sometimes with overtime.

She eventually resigned because her youngest son was having health problems and needed her care.

She joined HOD in early 2017 after seeing her neighbour working on our handstitched blankets from home.

She started as production staff and is still with us today.

Over the years, We have also seen another side of Ririn develop.

She has a natural ability to work with people.

She has helped coordinate women in her neighbourhood who work with HOD from their homes. She understands them because she is also part of the same community.

In 2023, Ririn and her family were finally able to purchase their first house through a government-subsidised housing program, with the income she earned through her work with HOD playing an important part in making it possible.

She and her husband renovated the house to fit their family of five.

Now they have their own home and a neighbourhood where they are becoming part of the community.

Ririn still works three days a week at HOD headquarters and continues handstitching blankets from home.

When We look at her journey, We don't just see a production staff.

We see someone who has grown into a person who can also help other women grow.

And We think that is something worth paying attention to.

After 10 years, we started asking a different question

For many years, we measured what we were doing through economic outcomes.

How many women received training?

How many women worked with us?

How many products did we sell?

How much income did they earn?

Those things are important.

But after working alongside the same women for many years, I started noticing other changes that were harder to put into a report.

A woman who used to always come late starts becoming more consistent.

Someone who needed to be reminded about everything starts taking responsibility for her own work.

Someone who was afraid of making mistakes starts trying again.

Someone learns to finish a project on time.

Someone becomes better at solving problems.

Someone starts helping another worker.

Someone becomes really good at handstitching.

Someone learns embroidery.

Someone becomes confident using a sewing machine.

And eventually, someone who started as a worker becomes a person who can teach another person.

These things were happening in front of us.

But we weren't documenting them properly.

And I think that is something we need to change.

From Worker to Artisan

This is why, as we enter our next decade, we are starting to document what we call the Worker to Artisan Journey.

We want to understand more clearly how people develop through craft.

Not only the technical skill, but the person behind the skill.

Maybe it starts with something as simple as showing up on time.

Then learning to finish something on time.

Then becoming more consistent.

Learning to take responsibility.

Learning to solve problems.

Developing determination.

Then the technical skills start growing.

Learning to sew properly.

Learning to work more independently.

Learning handstitching.

Learning hand embroidery.

Learning machinery.

Learning how to handle more complicated products.

And eventually, perhaps, becoming skilled enough to teach someone else.

We are still learning how to structure and measure this journey.

But we know it is happening.

And we want to start paying attention to it.

We don't want to stop at economic empowerment

Our first decade has taught us that economic empowerment is important.

A better income matters.

Being able to pay off debt matters.

Being able to save matters.

Being able to buy a house matters.

Being able to work while still caring for your children matters.

Having a skill that you can take with you matters.

But we also learned that income alone is not enough.

People are not only economic beings.

They also need the opportunity to develop as human beings.

They need to grow in confidence, responsibility, skill, decision-making, and sometimes leadership.

And this is where our understanding of HOD has become clearer.

Craftsmanship is the medium. People are the purpose.

For the first 10 years, we have been learning how to create meaningful work.

For the next 10 years, we want to become better at understanding what that meaningful work can develop in a person.

We want to document the journeys.

We want to learn from them.

We want to build a clearer pathway from worker, to skilled worker, to artisan, and eventually to mentor and leader.

We don't know exactly what all of that will look like yet.

But after 10 years, we are more comfortable saying that we are still learning.

And maybe that is also part of building HOD.

Not having everything figured out.

But continuing to look at the people beside us, noticing how they are growing, and asking ourselves:

What can we build next that helps them grow further?

Ten years later, we are still making things with our hands.

But we are beginning to understand that what we are really building is not only the product.

We are building people.