By Megan Sayer

David Bussau is the co-founder of Opportunity International, an organisation set up to provide small business start-up loans to people living in extreme poverty. ultra106five Breakfast announcer Scottie Haas spoke to David recently about some of his life experiences . . .

Many successful people say how grateful they are to the start their parents gave them in life. David Bussau seems an unlikely person to profess that kind of sentiment, yet he is publicly and sincerely thankful for his lot. At the age of eight David and his younger brother were sent by their mother to live in an orphanage. He never saw the rest of his family again. Far from feeling angry and bitter at this abandonment though, David took the best he could from his experiences and used them to propel him forward.

The “Economics of Enough”
Growing up in the austere environment of the Boy’s Home gave David a simple understanding of life: you are responsible for your own success and happiness, and if you have money then you have the freedom to do whatever you want. Free, as he puts it, from the “constraints of family holding (him) back”, and with nothing to lose by taking a risk, David bought his first business at 19.

He followed his long-instilled work ethic and desire for financial independence, and by 35 he was a multi-millionaire, owning a string of construction companies in Sydney. Eventually though he came to the point of thinking how much is enough? “When I’ve got all I ever need to live on, why am I spending so much time away from my family making more?”

Riches to Rags
After 18 months in the early 1970s spent overseeing the rebuilding of Darwin after Cyclone Tracey, David moved his family to Indonesia. Again he helped with re-building after a devastating earthquake destroyed a number of communities there. David witnessed first hand the effects of generational poverty on the people.

He tells the story of a man he met whose wife was expecting their fourth child. The family were tenant farmers who owed money to the landowner in order to live there between the harvest seasons. Their two oldest children, aged seven and eight, were mortgaged to the landowner, and spent their days working in a carpet factory to pay off their family’s debt. The baby, when old enough, would do the same. David lent the family $100 to buy a sewing machine which they could use to make products to sell. They would then pay back both David’s loan and the landowner’s debt completely.

Now, 35 years later, Opportunity International lends out approximately $1 billion annually in small loans like these.

The “Theology of Work”
David has a powerful understanding of the complexities of poverty. “God has wired us to be productive. When we’re not working we lose our sense of dignity, we can’t provide for our families. Loans enable people to get back into the workforce, whereas charity continues to build the cycle of dependence.”

David Bussau was awarded the Senior Australian of the Year award in 2008 for his work with micro-enterprise and development.
You can find out more about the work of Opportunity International by clicking here.