As we enter the 5th year of our existence, we went through the 4th year with more benefit-generating social projects we believe will give a real impact on the life of thousands of people who have experienced years of difficulty in meeting their daily needs.
In Yogyakarta, Central Java, where millions of people are still living below poverty line, we stepped into a new adventure by establishing two “small syariah banks” commonly called “Baitul Maal wat-Tamwil” (house of treasury) or “BMT” in short, with a starting capital of IDR 156 million (Indonesian Rupiah), equal to £8,700.oo.
This is the office of our “House of Treasury” (Baitul Maal) in Yogyakarta we named “BMT Ihsan Mulia”. It was quite hard to start this “small bank” amidst a huge challenge to invite “small people” to come and join our effort to eliminate the usurers who charge a small loan at 100% or 200% interest.
This on-going project is expected to grow convincingly as more and more poor people turn to us for a profit-sharing loan in which they can enjoy most of the profit they make and free themselves from intimidating usurers.
IHSAN chairman, Mr Asyari Usman, paid his first visit to the “small syariah bank” BMT Ihsan Mulia in Yogyakarta after last year’s Ramadan.
Small syariah bank Ihasn Mulia is run by five employees including a woman accountant who manages day-to-day operation.
The other small syariah bank is BMT Mitra Ihsan, also located in Yogyakarta but in the opposite part of where BMT Ihsan Mulia situated. Starting capital was also small but, Alhamdulillah, I am pleased to tell you that this second small syariah bank is growing.
My wife and I (the two in the middle) paid a visit to the office of IHSAN’s second “small syariah bank” called Mitra Ihsan in the south of Yogyakarta, September 2009.
Again, poor people come here to get a small loan for their small businesses with a profit sharing system that gives most of the profit to them so that they can expand their trading.
During this visit, it’s known to me that the enthusiasm on the side of poor people to borrow small loan was very high. The good thing is that almost all of the borrowers are people who would always abide by the rules set out by the boards of the two small syariah banks. The most important rule is reporting their progress to the managers and paying back the small amount regularly in order to maintain the bank cash-flow. So far, every thing is going well.
Microfinance Project
Now, the other way to help poor and very low income people is by teaching them to save a small amount of money every day. Our woman volunteers on the ground approached housewives in different neighbourhood and invited them to join a scheme in which they would be asked to save 1,000 rupiahs (equal to 7p) every day for 60 days unbrokenly. Our volunteer would act as a collector in a group on 8-10 housewives in the saving scheme.
If they could follow the scheme uninterruptedly, the at the end of the 60 day scheme we will match their saving and pay them back their saving in full plus the same amount from IHSAN. In short, 60,000 rupiahs (£4) they save with our volunteers in 60 days will be doubled by us as a “prize” for their tight discipline in this saving scheme.
The important message in this scheme is that a discipline in saving money can be very helpful to them, no matter how small the amount saved.
At the moment, as an ongoing project, IHSAN is implementing the scheme in several village in sub-district Tanah Sareal in Bogor, the Province of West Java.
I was trying to encourage and convince them the 7p daily saving scheme will benefit them and their families in the long run.
How the future will hold?
I am pleased to say that all of the projects and schemes that are being implemented by IHSAN will, insya Allah, have a significant impact on the way poor people manage their life. We do not only direct them to more benefiting way of life, but they’re also regularly invited to the talks about the way Islam want them to go; what they need to do to avoid time-wasting and, most importantly, what they need to do to free themselves from the trap of poverty.
We keep telling them that their children are very important for them if they were to change their future generation to the better. They’re listening to us, they’re very loyal to what we have told them to do, and they are now becoming a force of change in their surrounding neighbourhoods.
So, we at IHSAN believe that the future of these projects/schemes is very bright but, Alhamdulillah, our limited source needs to be supported as more and more people from many different parts of Indonesia are ready to help us expand our programs. Now, we need more donation than ever.
Wassalam alaykum.
Asyari Usman
Chairman
M: 07871215133
