Abstract :
Professor Muhammad Yunus developed Village Phone (VP) program which
combined microfinance and access to communications through a mobile phone
as one of the way to empower poor villagers, especially women. PT Bakrie
Telecom (BTEL) is conducts Usaha Bersama Esia (Uber Esia), which is similar to
VP program of Bangladesh and other countries. The program is intended as a
CSR initiative of BTEL. This study is aimed to know whether the Uber Esia
program really works well and suitable for Indonesia. Literature review from
Dasgupta?s journal and IFC replication model support the forming of
questionnaire and data analysis. This study shows that the Village Phone
Operators (VPOs) are dominated by the 20-29 years age group, on a High
School level of education background, most of them unemployed, and have a
daily activity as a house wife. It is proved that the VPOs who participate in Uber
Esia program are reaching out to the marginalized communities with low
purchasing power because the VPO?s monthly income are still below the poverty
line standard from World Bank Rp 750.000,00 per month. Uber Esia program is
aimed to encourage entrepreneurs but not necessarily give a strong qualification
for the VPOs to have a small scale business before starting the program. Most of
the VPOs are women. but male VPOs are also could participate in the program.
The VPOs join the Uber Esia program in order to get easier access to
telecommunication. The Uber Esia program works quite well since most of the
VPOs have a frequent phone credits transactions, sufficient knowledge of the
VPOs, the subscribers are satisfied, the VPOs never loss, get additional income,
and there is a highly needs of phone services in their area, the Uber Esia
program is useful, easy to start, worth it, the capital is affordable. But the program
does not provide any training, financial aids, and the VPOs are facing a high
competition. The VPOs expectation towards Uber Esia program is quite optimistic
and the program is potentially sustainable.