Overcoming Poverty Together

OPT's beginnings are full of interesting serendipitous twists and turns. Inspired by a fundraiser attended in Baltimore for Women Entrepreneurs of Baltimore, Jack Wilson, a U.S. Vietnam war veteran, returned to his home in Yogyakarta, Indonesia and launched Women Entrepreneurs of Yogyakarta using his own military benefits to start and fund 100% of the operations. Having known nothing about microfinance or microoentrepreneurship, mistakes were made and eventually that organization was folded. After the devastating earthquake in 2006, Jack started a new organization, PPMK, to help families get back on their feet after losing everything, including their means of supporting their families.

PPMK is strategically designed to eliminate the root causes of poverty: lack of economic opportunity; limited or poor educational opportunities; and poor health. To date, PPMK has a 100% repayment rate on its loans to poor women in rural villages in Indonesia. Furthermore, PPMK is working collaboratively with the village women to launch two job creating businesses - plastic waste recycling and organic composting. Leveraging the work of other NGO's, PPMk is providing scholarships to send poor children to school and supporting a mobile library to provide access to books to rural villagers. To improve health, PPMK provides nutritional milk to poor school children, educational booklets to parents and children about preparing and eating healthy foods and healtgh screenings.

Sadly, Jack has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and PPMK will not be able to survive when Jack's military benefits are no longer available. OPT took on PPMK as its first project to support to ensure the ongoing success of this amazing program that is turning around so many families' lives.