Since I came back in Yogyakarta in the beginning of this month I hadn’t had a chance to visit our loan groups; go to the villages, meet our people and see how they’re doing and see their businesses. Lastri, our Microcredit manager, visits the groups a lot, especially in the early stage when a group is formed she keeps very close contacts to get to know them and build good relationships. Once a group is settled – given the loan, explained the rules and duty of being a loan group member – we withdraw from the process and we’ll only meet them once a month for the monthly payback. These meetings are not only to recollect the money, they also report about their businesses to us – and each other – so we make sure that the social process that works as a social pressure to make the payback continues to be at work. These people are too poor to get a loan from a bank because they can’t offer collateral, or the interest is too high. In microcredit there is no collateral but we still want to offer them a chance to raise levels of existence. So what we use is social peer pressure to commit to a group and – even if small - meet their financial obligations.

These weeks we are preparing to receive overseas funding which enables us to expand our current loan program by four fold. Our first sponsor will be OPT (Opposing Poverty Together) which was initiated by Jan Houbolt and Rachel Wohl (who were in Yogya to visit their friend and our premium funder, Jack Wilson) after they had visited our organization in August 2009. At that time we had just started to make the transition from ‘activities aimed at the benefit of poor people we knew’ (in Bantul, after the earthquake in 2006) to a more organized entity, a structured organization with effective programs and a solid administration. The activities resulted from a mission to empower the weakest that had always been in our minds but now we realized the urgency of organizing ourselves.

In October 2009, May from South-Korea joined us, in November 2009 the author left for Holland (only to come back again after 10 months :). After that PPMK struggled to hire a new accountant which, after some detours resulted in our current accountant Avin. But PPMK has known more struggles. One that touched our hearts the most was the loss of our colleague and friend Rumi. She worked with us for about 6 months when she and her unborn baby died after she slipped in the bathroom. In the month that followed May got a scholarship to study Indonesian in Malang and she accepted it. We will miss her but we wish her good luck!

As I look back on how the situation of our organization was when I first joined in 2009, we made the kind of improvements we were just hoping for but were never certain to happen. From executing ‘loose activities’ to receiving international funding is a huge leap in our development as an organization. We are so much looking forward to all the challenges this brings.

As said, today was my first day back in the field. We had prepared a small business-training to teach some basic bookkeeping skills to a group that applied for a loan. They are garbage collectors who buy and sell garbage. Sometimes they need to buy more stock than they can afford and they have to borrow it from the dealer. With our money won’t have to do this anymore and they can increase their stock and profit.

Sitting at the back of the motorbike I prepared the lesson in my head. What was profit again in bahasa…? Oh ya, laba!

My thoughts went off to the group of women and I pictured myself among them, figuring out what they already know and trying to teach them new things. In Indonesian…aaahhh! At times I noticed the beautiful landscape we were passing through thinking wow I’m back, doing the most exciting things. I very much enjoy working at our office, working with staffs, develop new programs or improve existing ones, attract new sponsors and think of new strategies…but this is, kind of like….the real thing you know…..!

The training was a success. Lastri made the introduction in Javanese and I followed in bahasa. The atmosphere was just cheerful and friendly. I think the business-training was simple, basic…adjusted to their needs and ability which is sometimes no more than primary school. They looked open to receive our small business teachings.

We made a start for… true empowerment. It may be a high, idealistic goal but that’s what we go for. In the end we want these people to run their businesses independently without having to need a loan from us or anyone. And if they borrow for a second time, it means that businesses have expanded. We’ll support them wherever we can. We’ll also focus on Environment and Health related issues because we believe that unhealthy environment and bad health prevent people from rising out of poverty, even having a bit of money to start a business and create income is not always enough.

I will busy myself for the next year with developing this organization further and establish strong programs so that more funders will decide to support us. Because yes, in order to help other people make sustainable businesses, we also need to focus on our own survival.

On this page me and other staffs will keep you posted about our activities and the people we target for our support. Follow us here, and even better, support us! We are happy to receive any kind of support, which can start with the suggestion of this page to your friends. Thank you.

Yogyakarta, 28 October 2010

Roan

roan in action : give simple bussiness training for the woman group in manggung village..using bahasa indonesia. bravo!!!

The woman group listening to roan who explain about to make and keep the bussiness running..impressive!!!