Sri Widiawati is one of the most successful bankers in Indonesia's bustling capital, but she doesn't drive a fancy car, wear expensive handmade suits or work in a glitzy office.
She earns little more than US$1 a day, which is just enough to support her husband and two children while paying off a loan shark who conned her parents.
And her workplace is in the dusty back streets of the impoverished Jakarta neighborhood where she lives.
But in the two years since she became involved with Kesuma Tiara, a grassroots savings-and-loan cooperative, she has travelled light years -- professionally and personally.
On the business side, each month, the native of East Java oversees loans to some 240 women -- men are not allowed to borrow from Kesuma -- across three neighborhoods.
"I feel like I'm needed by the community," she said.
Her story highlights the victories of the unique "barefoot bank" she works for, set up in 1999 after the economic meltdown to help the poorest of the poor in Jakarta's sprawling slums, called kampungs.
It was the impoverished, anonymous slum dwellers who bore much of the brunt of the financial crisis that slammed Indonesia in the late 1990s and sunk millions below the poverty line.
Poverty rate jumps
The World Bank estimated Indonesia's poverty rate in 1997 before the crisis was 7.23 percent. By the second half of 1998, that number had jumped to 21 percent of the country's more than 200 million people and the economy has yet to pick up.
Kesuma Tiara has made impressive inroads so far in helping ease the economic pain afflicting its growing base of borrowers. Sri Alam, a 45-year-old shopkeeper, is a typical success story.
Before becoming a member of the micro-bank, she saved little and poured most of the cash she made back into her tiny kiosk, which sells snacks, cigarettes and other small household products.
Since then she has been able to boost the amount of items she sells and that has allowed her to put some money aside to spend on her family.
"I have been able to send my son to school," she said.
In line with Kesuma's regulations, depending on the loan size, she must immediately deposit 50,000 to 60,000 (about US$6) rupiah in a personal savings account with the cooperative.
Like similar micro-lending groups around the world, Kesuma Tiara gives small loans to those who otherwise have no access to capital or can only borrow from local lenders at high rates.
The organization thrives off already existing social connections. And because its borrowers generally do not have anything of value for collateral, its strict rules are enforced by the subtle pressures of social networks.
Kesuma Tiara initially recruited members from one of the local savings societies known in Indonesia as Arisan. Members -- usually housewives -- meet in each other's homes to pitch money into a pot, which they take turns "winning." The traditional Arisan groups evolved in the absence of consumer bank credit.
Kesuma Tiara does not give handouts; borrowers who default on one loan -- which can range from 100,000 rupiah to 600,000 (US$11 to US$70) -- lose their privileges for good.
Australian anthropologist
But unlike its often much larger counterparts throughout the world, Kesuma was built from the ground up with the goal of helping the women who work for it as much as the women who borrow from it.
"Everything was designed by the women who run the bank," said founder Lea Jellinek, an Australian anthropologist who with a colleague brought the basic idea, US$100 of seed money and a ton of will, to west Jakarta.
In the two years since it was founded, Kesuma Tiara's clientele has grown from one group of 10 sceptical borrowers to 32 groups totalling 576 members.
The details created by the women who run the cooperative have been critical to its successes, Jellinek said.
To the women who work for Kesuma Tiara, Jellinek said, "This is as important as their families."
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