Activist encourages the poor to be self-reliant

Activist encourages the poor to be self-reliant

By Dwi Atmanta

JAKARTA (JP): Poor people are not so much the "have-nots" but
the "have little" who need to join forces and stick together to
overcome their hardships.

That is what Bambang Ismawan has kept in mind ever since he
decided to devote himself to the poor almost 40 years ago. For
that reason, too, the non-governmental organization he founded
does not offer charity but encouragement.

"We do not give donations to the poor because they have all
the resources they need to help themselves. We just facilitate
and provide them with a series of training that will enable them
to achieve a better life," Bambang says of the Bina Swadaya, one
of the country's largest non-governmental organizations he now
chairs.

When only 20 years old, Bambang was the inspiration behind the
establishment of the Pancasila Farmers Association in 1958, an
embryo of the government-backed Indonesian Farmers Association
(HKTI). Bambang is currently HKTI vice president.

The HKTI was established in 1967 and, whether by design or
not, became a popular mass organization favored by the Soeharto-
led New Order government. The government left certain activities,
particularly rural development projects, to Bina Swadaya to
execute.

"I dreamed about becoming a rich person who owned a huge
ranch, before a Jesuit missionary completely changed my mind. I
felt shamed by his deep concern about helping the needy here,
even though he was a foreigner," Bambang recalls one of the
milestones in his life.

The Dutch priest, Johanes Baptisa Dijkstra, introduced Bambang
to a devotion to the weak that cost then young Bambang his
dreams.

"Many of my friends thought I was crazy, but I've never
regretted my choice," says Bambang, a devout Catholic. Dijkstra,
Bambang's mentor, celebrates his 87th birthday on Monday.

Now employing some 1,500 full-time workers in nine towns, the
low-profile Bina Swadaya has been intensively involved in the
national poverty alleviation programs in that it cultivates self-
reliant groups and consistently promotes cooperatives.

The NGO controls varied activities and businesses from a small
office situated on Jl. Gunung Sahari III, near the ever crowded
business area of Senen in Central Jakarta.

Not many know that the government's poverty alleviation
program, established through presidential instructions on least-
developed villages, to some extent adopts Bina Swadaya's rural
society development method of group counseling.

"We have no intention of taking a stance against the
government because it would be unrealistic and a waste of energy.
It's better to forge a friendship with the government to enable
us to influence its policymaking," a towering Bambang says.

"It's a living reality that government plays a major role in
development in the developing world," he adds.

The least-developed villages program is an outstanding fruit
of the "friendship", according to Bambang, mainly because Bina
Swadaya took part in drawing up its concepts, promoting the
program and training people targeted in the program.

Bambang says Bina Swadaya does not advocate government policy,
but offers dialog.

"Through this program, we try to show the government that it
can no longer manage development from a bureaucratic point of
view. Instead, the development program must acknowledge and
encourage people's initiatives and participation," he says.

"In a way the program is also intended to plant the seeds of
democracy, in which people realize that everybody is equal before
the law. Their integration into their groups is expected to give
them a new horizon of participation in policymaking."

Bambang was presented the Satya Lencana award by the
government in 1995 for his efforts.

Microfinance

Bina Swadaya's core activity is encouraging poor people to
save money in order to collect working capital for their
businesses.

"It's difficult in the beginning to advise them to save, but
later it was proven that saving helped group members who sought
capital," Bambang recalls. The self-financing method is widely
called microfinance, which has been a success in many developing
countries.

"Microfinance is so far the best way to educate the poor about
self-reliance. In many cases, villagers show expertise in running
small-scale businesses, which is something university students
must learn," he says.

Bina Swadaya also approached the central bank in order to gain
loans for the groups of poor people it trains.

"First of all it was a bit of a gamble when the central bank
approved our application for loans, because our laws prohibit
bank lending to nonformal groups. The bank agreed after we showed
it that the groups were good risks," Bambang recollects.

In its latest report on a program linking banks to the self-
help groups last March, the central bank says 775 bank offices
had disbursed Rp 7.1 billion in loans to 13,490 self-help groups
covering 404,700 households with a repayment rate of 91.5
percent.

"It turns out that lower-class people deserve bank credits
more than the tycoons who accumulate whopping bad debts," Bambang
says.

He says that once a self-help group manages to rely on its
business as a source of income, NGO activists can make a living
from their services. "I dream of seeing an NGO position become a
profession of choice," he says.

The collapse of the national banking sector due to the hard
biting economic turbulence has adversely affected the self-help
groups.

But Bambang, a graduate of Yogyakarta's Gadjah Mada
University's School of Economics and one of the most senior non-
governmental organization activists in the country, refuses to
give up.

He invites a group of people who he says come from the middle
class to set up an alternative financial institution to provide
sustainable loans for the lower class.

"Up to now we have registered 28 people, more than enough to
establish a credit lending cooperative," he told The Jakarta Post
recently. "We have set a target of 100 members by December," he
added.

A member will be obliged to invest at least Rp 10 million in
the cooperative. It will offer a Rp 1 million loan to a group
member with, surprisingly, an interest rate of about 60 percent.

"It doesn't matter, because experience has told us that lower-
class people are able to make up to a 200 percent net profit," a
proud Bambang says.

Bambang admits he is satisfied with what he has done over the
past three decades. Born as an NGO which totally relied on
foreign aid, Bina Swadaya has been financially self-sufficient
since 1991.

"At least our employees can now live in their own houses, buy
refrigerators or vehicles. Their children can go to school, too.

"To some extent we have been able to meet our needs from the
organization we work for," Bambang, a father of two children,
says.