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The changemakers doing business with a conscience
Home sweet home: New cooperative homes are found among a thriving neighborhood set up by the Coin Street Community Builders in London, England
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span class="inline inline-center">Home sweet home: New cooperative homes are found among a thriving neighborhood set up by the Coin Street Community Builders in London, England.
Two social entrepreneurs ' Gamal Albinsaid and Seterhen Akbar ' do not just talk. They translate their ideas into reality.
In the East Java town of Malang, Gamal set up the Garbage Clinical Insurance, where poor patients 'pay' for medical services with trash.
In one move, the young doctor provides healthcare services for the poor while also providing a solution to environmental problems.
'I believe that health is a basic human right. And the clinic seems like the perfect solution because every house produces garbage on a daily basis,' said the 24-year-old CEO of Indonesia Medika, an organization that adopts social entrepreneurship principles.
Starting in his hometown in Malang back in 2010, the clinic has spread its wings. It can now be found in other cities, such as Bandung and Yogyakarta, and benefits some 2,000 people.
Gamal said the clinic was set up out of concern for the country's low health budget.
Under the 39/2009 Health Law, Indonesia, which is classified as a lower-middle income country by the World Bank, should set aside 5 percent of the state budget for the health sector. In reality, however, only 2.1 percent was allocated in 2013 and 2012.
'Our budget for health is even low compared to some poor countries,' Gamal said while in London for a study tour on UK social enterprises after being named a runnerup in the semi-established category at the fourth edition of the Arthur Guinness Fund and British Council Indonesia's Community Entrepreneurs Challenge, an annual competition that started in 2010.
He said that 22 out of 36 poor countries have allocated 11 percent of their budget to the health sector. Three poor African countries, including Tanzania, have even allocated up to 15 percent.
The idea for the clinic, he said, was to create a health financing system that would give healthcare access to people who could not afford to pay for medical services on their own.
The answer is trash. The garbage collected by the clinic is turned into cash, with inorganic waste is directly sold to trash collectors and organic waste composted. Each person generates around Rp 10,000 (85 US cent) a month.
The fund is then used to cover a patient's medical services ' from preventive to curative treatments and counseling to home visits ' as well as day-to-day running of the clinics, giving poor patients access to doctors, nurses, pharmacists and dentists.
The system, he said, has also changed people's perception about trash ' from something of no good to something of value, which in turn, makes them manage their waste better.
He also plans to spread the clinic further, backed up with more research to ensure it is replicable in other places. He is also working to integrate his system with the government's insurance programs for the poor to provide wider health access to people.
'Through the system, I want people to be free from fear. Imagine if your parent or your child is sick but you have no money,' Gamal says.
In another city, Seterhen, the initiator of Riset Indie independent research group, decided it was about time to do something with worsening traffic congestion in Bandung, West Java.
Believed to be triggered by people's reluctance to take public transport, especially angkot public minivan, the group, with support from the Bandung Creative City Forum (BCCF), launched the so-called 'Angkot Day', where they worked with angkot drivers to provide one day of free, organized and safe |service.
'We just do what we need to do,' said Seterhen, better known as Saska, who won special mention in the Challenge's startup category.
He said angkot had a bad image and drivers were notorious for reckless driving ' exacerbating traffic already on the tipping point with vehicles from outside Bandung with people's preference to drive private vehicles.
'In the future, we may have a mass rapid transportation system in place, but in the meantime, we need to do something about the traffic problem. One of the solutions that is already around is angkot. But since it is not popular, we decided to do something about it,' Saska says.
The drive ' financed by different sources, including crowd funding ' was warmly welcomed by passengers and even gained support from Bandung Mayor Ridwan Kamil, who volunteered to drive one of the 236 public minivans along Bandung's busy Kelapa Dago route during the campaign held on Sept. 20 last year.
'We considered the drive a success because passengers who used to be reluctant to take angkot were smiling. They even said 'thank you' to the drivers, who in return were happily surprised since they did not usually get that. They are used to haggling with passengers over fares,' he said.
Through observation, Riset Indie found out that economic reasons and mismanagement of angkot, which are mostly privately owned and thus difficult for the authorities to coordinate, were the main reasons for its generally poor service.
'When we came to the drivers, we introduced ourselves as concerned residents, not activists or officials. And they opened up. It turned out the drivers main concern was how to earn enough money that day, not to provide better service,' Saska says.
'They considered their reckless driving as just the sensible thing to do, while in reality, it made people reluctant to take angkot and prefer to use private vehicles ' worsening congestion and making the drivers further stress out since they bring home less money with the declining number of passengers. It's a vicious circle.'
The group, he said, would not stop its work after the drive. It is now looking to invent a new business model to generate additional income for drivers apart from those generated from fares, provide trainings and include angkot in the feeder system for a future mass rapid transportation system.
'We're currently studying the possibilities to better fit not just the city but the drivers and passengers as well.'
