In Banker to the Poor, Muhammad Yunus discusses the power of micro-lending in the struggle to end world poverty. He created a bank called Grameen, which is dedicated to lifting families from poverty and providing them with the means necessary to become contributing members of society. Grameen Bank began as a simple project to help poor members of a small village in Bangladesh. Eventually though, it expanded to across more than one-hundred countries in five continents. It has helped millions of the world's’ poorest people overcome their struggle with poverty. Micro-loans are essentially the same as traditional loans, just on a much smaller scale. Families living in extreme poverty usually don’t have good enough credit to obtain a traditional …show more content…
He realizes that many of them borrow miniscule amounts of money, and earn even smaller profits. To resolve this issue, he first distributes about $27 to about 40 villagers. Then, he gets a loan for $300 and acts as a guarantor (someone who guarantees a loan will be repaid) so the villagers can borrow that money.
Chapter 5: A pilot Project is Born In this chapter, Yunus discusses, in detail, the Grameen Bank and how it operates. Females have very little power or independence. Many people in Bangladesh thought only men should handle money. Therefore, Grameen had difficulty loaning to women. He also talks about the complications of a daily repayment system. For over twenty years, borrowers have paid back their loans in weekly installments.
Chapter 6: Expanding Beyond Jobra into Tangail
In this chapter, Muhammad explains how the Grameen Bank started. At first, it was just an experiment that Professor Yunus conducted with his students. Eventually, though, Yunus temporarily left the University of Chittagong to oversee the Grameen Bank Project, which succeeded, despite all of the hardships it
The setting for this ghost story was at Sturdivant Hall, in Selma, Alabama in the 1860’s.
In fact, Rosa’s husband started a savings club with his friends, which generated a surprise monetary gift one per month to one of the many participants. This method’s goal is to allow every person to change their family's present life condition and build on their economic status in a generous way where every single person is benefitted at a different time. Also, we see the use of Grameen’s loans which has allowed many villagers to better their businesses that they hoped to one day put a start to. For example, Rosa received a loan of two hundred dollars and was able to start her weaving business. In fact, with the money, she bought her supplies, and with the generated profits, she could pay for the education she always dreamed of but could never afford.
The book, Microfinance and its Discontent: Women in Debt in Bangladesh written by Lamia Karim, gives us account on what causes a culture to be known as “economy of shame” status, such as in the case of Bangladesh. She writes on a subject that is a top list priority in the economical world these days, the corrupt ways NGO’s lenders do business not only in Bangladesh but across the world, however, she centralizes her views on Bangladesh and only a handful of NGO’s. Even though this was primarily a look at Bangladesh, it has resulted in capturing the attention of people across the globe not only with the NGO’s mention in the book but resulting in a closer look at all NGO’s and how they serve the people. Karim shares with the readers how the 1980’s nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) led in the way of microfinance institutions and claimed that they were providing women with an empowerment tool by issuing them loans. We find that over 80% of borrows are women and most are economically challenged already. With that being stated Karim also takes a look at how and why that is, she discusses the long term effects it is having on women and how it is furthering the exploitation of women in Bangladesh. She looked at how this type of exploitation has not only weakened further women’s economy in Bangladesh but has also strengthen the power NGO’s have over the people (mainly women) at the same time. It takes a look at this type of expansion and brands NGO’s use as a “shadow state
Women taking out micro-loans can have a positive effect on them and their business. Many loans women take out are for tiny incorporations being made in their country. They take out loans to start small businesses and make more money, it helps them give their daughters a possible future for education, and can affect the future of the economy as more of these loans are being made.
Seven years ago, Jessica Jackley heard a speech by Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus, an economist from Bangladesh who had developed the idea of microcredit: loans offered to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. She says, "I was so completely blown away by the idea that I quit my job, dropped everything and moved to East Africa to help." In late 2005 she co-founded Kiva.org with Matt Flannery.
269). There is no easy way for those with little money to begin earning interest on savings or obtain loans with reasonable interest rates: the banking community is failing the poorest people (Banerjee & Duflo, 2012, p. 269). Also, Banerjee and Duflo (2012) assert that medical and agricultural insurance are not favored by the poor in spite of the fact that they could benefit greatly from such products (269). Their proposed solutions come in the form of microcredit (to provide access to more reasonable loans), electronic money transfer systems (to reduce the fixed costs of saving), and rewarding people for making good financial decisions (either via markets or the government if needed) (Banerjee & Duflo, 2012, p. 270). The incentives could even be something unrelated, such as bed nets, which then help the recipients in more than one way (Banerjee & Duflo, 2012, p. 270). This would need to be coupled with government regulation so that unscrupulous individuals wouldn’t have a way to easily game the system (Banerjee & Duflo, 2012, p. 270).
Many families in developing nations do not have sustainability in their lives. In her article, “Microfinance Empowering Female Entrepreneurs”, Elizabeth Matsangou writes, “starting and growing a business is virtually impossible without access to financial services.” Basically, Matsangou is saying that in order to start a business, you need help with the use of micro-loans. Further proving the point that micro-loans that empower women and women need these loans. Many women in developing countries start micro-enterprises to help raise money for their family. With this in mind, it is obvious to see what kind of positive impact micro-loans can have on women. Starting businesses are nearly impossible without the use of micro-loans, proving that they can help empower
Microfinancing produces many benefits for poverty stricken, or low- income households. One of the benefits is that it is very accessible. Banks today simply won’t extend loans to those with little to no assets, and generally don’t engage in small size loans typically associated with microfinancing. Through microfinancing small loans are produced and accessible. Microfinancing is based on the philosophy that even small amounts of credit can help end the cycle of poverty. Another benefit produced from the microfinancing initiative is that it presents opportunities, such as extending education and jobs. Families receiving microfinancing are less likely to pull their children out of school for economic reasons. As well, in relation to employment,
Micro credit is the process of helping the “poorest of the poor” obtain loans. Since big time banks rarely help people who need help acquiring loans, micro credit is another source that makes it possible for the lower class to achieve that. They focus on they call the “real economy,” where they are on personal relationships with their clients. They want them to succeed and help their clients change their own life. Compared to the big banks, they are not looking to make huge amount of interest back off their loan (paper chasers).
In this article Muhammad Yunus is in a poor village where he sees real poverty for the first time. Yunus later finds himself giving some of village people loans. With his help the poor small village was out of poverty.
National Bank Limited is one of the largest commercial Bank of Bangladesh. The main objective of
What is microlending? In simplest terms microlending is the lending of very small amounts of money at low interest, to low income people in urban and rural areas. It started forty years ago, when a person named Muhammad Yunus was visiting his family and his country Bangladesh which had recently become an independent country. Muhammad Yunus had left his home country then –East Bengal- when he was a child with his parents in search of a better future. He graduated from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, with a PhD in economics. Muhammad Yunus is the founder of Grameen Bank, the first non-profit organization to offer microfinance services in Bangladesh and in the world (New York Times). This bank showed the world on how little
Building Social Business is a book about social enterprise written by Muhammad Yunus. Muhammad Yunus is a social entrepreneur, economist, banker, and civil servant leader from Bangladesh. He is known for founding the Grameen Bank which is a microfinance organization and community development bank. Yunus is a well-known proponent of microfinance and microcredit. Due to his efforts in making a change through microfinance and microcredit and other noble causes, Yunus has been given several awards including the Independence Day Award in 1987, World Food Price in 1994, Pfeffer Peace Price also in 1994, Gandhi Peace Price in 2000, Volvo Environment Prize in 2003, Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009, Congressional
Another major characteristic of microfinance is that they have numerous loans to informally-organised businesses which are often in small amounts over a short-term period with turnover of the aggregate loan portfolio maturing several times during the year. These are unsecure loans with simple repayment structure and documentation, but interest rates are generally higher than those in the formal sector (Anderson, 2002).
To cite the saying that social entrepreneurship is the best way to help people in need, we would like to provide an outstanding example of social enterprise which is Grameen Bank. Grameen Bank was officially founded in 1983 by Muhammad Yunus and it provides small loans, rather than charity, to the poorest of the poor especially women in Bangladesh. This indeed provides an opportunity for the people to transform their lives. In 2006, Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank for their efforts to create economic and social