Grameen Foundation’s AppLab Indonesia, in partnership with Qualcomm’s Wireless Reach initiative, and social business PT Ruma, operate a mobile microfranchising program to provide the poor and poorest with business opportunities based on the mobile phone. Currently the micro franchisees sell mobile phone airtime credits to their customers. Most poor people start their micro-franchise with $11 for working capital. For the poorest of the poor this can present a challenge. Grameen Foundation designed a program to enable the poorest to participate in the mobile microfranchising program. It consists of a working capital loan of $11 and intensive support from our field officers on setting up and running the business. Micro-franchisees in the program graduate when they have paid back the working capital loan.
Ibu Hanifa, 30, recently became the first micro franchisee to graduate from our Solutions for the Poorest program. Along with her husband Suwadih, she is the parent of two, a 4th grader and a 8 month old. They live together in the same house with Suwadih’s parents and his brother and family in Kuniceran (on the western outskirts of Jakarta). Ibu Hanifa’s income from reselling mobile airtime supplements Suwadih’s home based electronic repair business. Ibu Hanifa is our best airtime reseller, with around 10 daily transactions. We are very proud of the hard work that she has done and we look forward to more members of our Solutions for the Poorest program graduating.
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