Partnership Ref.: |
IDN01 |
Commenced: |
25/05/2017 |
Funding Status: |
Fully Funded |
Partnership Type: |
Micro-enterprise / Micro-loans, Community / Agriculture Development, Evangelism / Church Planting |
Funding Size: |
$15,000 - $99,999 |
Annual Budget: |
US$ 33,000 |
Potential Budget: |
US$ 100,000 |
Population: 250 million
Life Expectancy: 70 yearsGDP: US$3834 per capita
Unemployed: 5.81%
% earn less than US$2/day
60 families are being assisted
60 families are accessing microloans
The majority of the people who are served by the Bluebird network come with few economic resources. Many are poor, rural peasants and daily workers. When they come to faith they often lose opportunities for education, employment and even marriage. They were economically poor before, now it is even worse. They have no access to the resources required to fund a business or small farm, feed their families or educate their children. This partnership provides funds to assist them to get on their feet and become able to sustain their families.
Within the structure of the Bluebird group there are many groups who require access to funds. There are around 10 people in each micro-credit group. Each group is well organised and have to:
1) demonstrate they have a skill and more than just an idea,
2) there has to be a lot of clarity around their ideas and plans,
3) they have to sign an MOU and
4) each person is liable for the others in the group.
Once a group forms and is recognised, mentoring groups move in to help them in four areas;
1) business mentoring and coaching,
2) spiritual mentoring,
3) administration of the group and
4) family mentoring, it is very important that the whole family understands the way it is set up and their responsibilities as well.
No interest is charged and the group funds are managed voluntarily. The term and loan size are all managed from within the group. To date they have had 100% return on loans in the past three years. Each group gets around US$1,600 to work with. The loans are given to small scale businesses, usually related to the living of people, food, transport, recurring sales.
The loans create a group of spiritual wise men in the village. As the economic capacity of the group grows it strongly impacts the spiritual message.
The missionary group from One Challenge (a US based mission organisation) has been operating in Indonesia for more than 40 years. In 1999 Trevor realised that their current methods of reaching out would not go across the cultural barriers that existed in that culture so he worked with others to develop new strategies and Bluebird was established.
BHW's New Partnership Facilitator has been communicating with Trevor for about two years. He first visited Indonesia in mid-2016 and met the expat team and a few of the local people. He then revisited in March 2017 and spent four days with Trevor, his wife and the main 15 men in leadership. Following this visit, in May 2017, BHW's Executive approved commencing a partnership with Bluebird Group.
The beneficiaries are the families who are served by the Bluebird group and who need access to resources. These people are formed into groups. They are taught how to establish a group, to set up the structure and organisation and to repay the funds.
There is a clear vision and well established strategies.
They have great structures and a clear understanding about how to develop and monitor projects.
They have wonderful people in place to oversee and develop the various groups and create workable structures.
This partnership will support a vital and significant movement that could have far reaching consequences.
This network has spread to seven other countries including Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia. Investing in this partnership will assist further spread of the network into the whole region.
'Trevor', a pseudonym, studied at Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) and is the leader of the Bluebird Group part of the work. He pastored a church in California for some years before becoming involved in Indonesia. He and his wife have been in country for 23 years.
He is the visionary regarding the Bluebird Group and is very highly respected. He is a prolific writer but finds it very difficult while in Indonesia because of all the distractions. They are developing most of their own resources.
He leads by vision, intense scrutiny of statistics and strong, loyal relationships.
For community development, there are three main leaders that mentor a larger share, but 14 of the 16 spiritual leaders oversee some of the community development. We cannot use their names for the sake of security.
The overall vision is to see a growing, healthy network of believers developing in the country.
For the support/development aspect of the work, the vision is to see people becoming economically and spiritually strong so they can contribute in many ways to the ongoing growth of the work and become self-sustaining.
The strategy is to increase the number of groups who are grappling with development issues. This will see them with access to funds so they can start small businesses, grow economically and become contributors. This will involve the formation of new groups, training, lending and mentoring. In five years the number of groups involved will have increased significantly and from within the wider network the growth of the work can be sustained from within.
Each group leader puts in an annual application for development. Bluebird attempts to fund about 60% of the total requested. This is usually micro-loan funds, other poverty reduction programmes and training about how to manage their money. Training families on ways to get themselves out of poverty is a very helpful thing to do. Funding the training of poor people is very valuable especially if they have land or a small enterprise already.
They are very entrepreneurial in terms of income generating opportunities; strawberry growing, fish ponds, tutoring, dance classes, motor cycle repair, tyre mending and restaurants. Many communities are asking for them to start preschools and day care centres for young children and some are just starting this.
Micro-credit and spiritual input together is a very powerful combination. For local people it is a miracle if they are able to be helped at both levels. Small businesses help whole families and draw multiple generations to faith.
The funds will be used for various income generating activities. These will be small business loans, training people in basic economics and agriculture projects - fish, cows, crop fertilizers, small gardens etc.
The Bluebird network is large and spread right across the country. It is growing quickly and we anticipate the budget will grow over a three-year period.
In one area Z was travelling at night on his motorbike and he got a flat tyre. He was in the middle of nowhere and praying, there was no cell coverage. Suddenly a man jumped out of the grass and told Z to follow him so he pushed the bike along a bush pathway to the man's house. The man was able to fix the tyre in a very rudimentary way. Z thanked the man, gave him his phone number and said he would come back next time he was passing. The short story is that there were four houses in that little village and all have come to faith, 21 people in all. They now also have a tyre mending business on the road side, two other families have opened little businesses by the tyre mending and more business are planned.