Becoming a Social Enterprise
Tenny Yanutriana is the Commissioner of BPR Surya Yudha, one of the best microfinance banks in Indonesia, and together with Project Child Indonesia we are undertaking a microfinance project to give PCI sustainable funding and improve the lives of the community in Kricak.
Tenny took the team at PCI for a journey to Banjarnegara, where BPR Surya Yudha first started many of its successful microfinance loans. At Banjarnegara the PCI staff and volunteers participated in a microfinance workshop to understand how injections of capital can help women start up businesses and create sustainable income. This injection of capital partnered with education in finance management and increasing financial literacy gives people in vulnerable communities vital skills to overcome poverty.
Offering these microloans will also help Project Child become a social enterprise. Currently our funding relies on donations, and is therefore not a stable income for our programs. By offering microloans with a small amount of interest, PCI can become self-sufficient and have a sustainable income to fund all of our programs. The transition from NGO to Social Enterprise is all about using what we have to sustain our social work, and we really hope with education, monitoring and small interest loans we can make PCI even bigger and better.
Our partnership with Tenny is one of the most new and exciting ventures PCI has undertaken yet. We hope this leads to a sustainable future for our programs and even the expansion of our social work to help and reach more people!
Interview with Tenny Yanutriana Commissioner BPR Bank Surya Yudha Leader for Project Child Indonesia Microfinance Venture
How did you come into contact with Project Child?
I first met Aya in 2012, where she enthusiastically told me about Project Child. She described PCI, “from A to Z” and I became very interested in its programs and inspired by its objectives. It was not yet a formal NGO at that time; it was just a small community of young people with a vibrant, dynamic energy, which was put into doing great things for underprivileged children in Yogyakarta. I was inspired and moved, and so I decided to be a regular donator and, a year later, I offered to help Aya transform that community into a formal legal NGO. It was, at the same time, Aya’s birthday, so the timing was nice and the NGO became like a beautiful present.
What inspires you to use your skills in banking and micro-finance for social work?
I have been in the micro finance banking industry for the last 13 years of my life, and I definitely love what I’m doing, especially the combination of serving commercial and social purposes. I am frequently in touch with the middle-low income population, as they are my main clients, and I have seen with my very own eyes that giving them some capital injections, education and technical skills, as well as trust, has changed their lives for the better. They have more confidence in life as they earn more. Their children go to higher education, they live in better houses, their quality of life is increased, and they can be more beneficial for the society for they are being productive. It truly is a win-win situation for everyone.
I would like to introduce micro finance into Project Child, with the objective of directly reaching the parents of these underprivileged children in the slum areas of Yogyakarta. It is my belief that if those parents could manage to increase their overall quality of life, it would have a direct — and profound — impact on the children.
Other than that, connecting this micro finance initiative with Project Child’s future dream to evolve into a Social Enterprise will help it be sustainable in the long run. By becoming a Social Enterprise and generating capital independently, Project Child will not have to reply so much on donations and, thus, will become self-sufficient and be able to help children indefinitely.
How long do you plan on working with Project Child?
For me, Project Child is a life-long project. I helped giving birth to it and I’d love to see it grow bigger and better. This organisation is so heart-warming, and I love seeing how young people can work together for a good cause in the community. On that note, Project Child is also developing its Beach School in Pacitan in addition to its River School in Yogyakarta, so the future, I believe, is very BIG.
There’s no way I wouldn’t be a part of that. More collaborations with new partners will be initiated, more programs will be added, more ideas, more volunteers, and — most importantly — more love.
