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At the international
level economics is a complex subject with stock
exchanges, bank interest rates, industrial output and
thousands of interrelating variables to be considered.
At the local level things can be very simple,
particularly in areas of high poverty.
Yayasan Peduli's work in the Eastern Islands
of Indonesia has shown that in many places attempts to
start economic activity are doomed to failure before they
begin simply because economies have no money to circulate.
If someone starts a business no one has any money to buy
products, there are no customers.
Yayasan Peduli has developed a strategy to
address this problem with three specific aims:
1 to bring money into the local region
from outside.
2 to reduce the amount of
money leaving the local region to buy things from outside.
3 to create activity that circulates money
as widely and freely as possible.
This is achieved in a number of ways:
1 Produce products that are exported and
sold outside the region.
2 Attract tourists and visitors from outside
the region to come and spend money within the region.
3 Train people from the region to go and
work in other places and send money back to their families.
Every time someone buys a motorcycle Rp12
million leaves the region some to Jakarta and most to Japan.
Anything that is brought in from outside such as clothes,
shoes, medicines, food stuffs, shampoo, soap, etc. results
in money being drained from the local economy.
The more that items can be produced locally
the less money leaves the region. Economic activity should
be debeloped that starts to produce consumer goods (particularly
essential items) locally.
People within local economies should be made
aware of the impact of buying luxury items from outside
the local economy.
This is quite simply creating job opportunities.
In a healthy economy there is money to circulate and as
many people as possible are able to "participate" in the
economy. It must be remembered that even in thriving healthy
economies there are people who live in poverty simply because
they are not able to participate - they cannot find work.
These are the basic principles we apply in
all our projects.
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