Nuning Purwaningrum Hallett Indonesia 2011 Grantee US - Canada Program
Nuning Purwaningrum Hallett is the Vice President and Head of Retail Business at Funding Societies (Modalku)—the biggest peer-to-peer (P2P) financial technology company in Southeast Asia which works to provide underbanked workers in Indonesia with more financial access to improve their lives.
Nuning’s higher level education and studies for a PhD in Gender Studies at SUNY Buffalo allowed her to build knowledge and empathy, the capability to see complex issues facing workers, and to find attainable solutions. Before joining Modalku, Nuning co-founded a start-up company (iCare - Sadaya) that manages employee benefits so as to allow workers to improve their lives in spite of the minimum wages they receive. The company builds partnerships with factories/company owners in order for workers to improve their skills, get better educations, and increase their financial capacities.
Fifty-nine percent of the Indonesian population comprises elementary and middle school graduates. Only 11% of the populace consists of college graduates. Most workers in manufacturing are middle school graduates, 27 to 30 years old. At such age and with little education, most cannot pursue a higher career but must stay in assembly line work their entire lives. iCare – Sadaya connects these workers to independent education institutions which provide GED-like training and arranges to have them learn after working hours through Android applications. It also provides them with affordable instalment payments to purchase the necessary Android phones and applications. The workers eventually receive GED certificate/high school diploma equivalents and some of them continue studying in college on weekends with iCare-Sadaya providing student loans. Such educational opportunities open up future possibilities for these workers.
On the household side, women workers often finish working and come home to household chores like washing clothes by hand that takes them another 1 to 2 hours of labor. iCare - Sadaya provides the financial facilities for the women to purchase low-cost washing machines with no-interest monthly instalment payments. The company makes a profit from the margin between the principal price versus the market price. This allows the company to provide interest-free instalments.
Nuning served around 550,000 workers in these efforts before moving on to Modalku.
