Grameen Development

Brigham Young University Grameen Support Group

 No. I October 1997

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the
world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. -Margaret Mead

What Is Grameen?
Grameen Bank was founded in Bangladesh in 1976 by Professor Muhammad Yunus as an actionresearch project. The project began by offering loans of $50- $100 to poor women. These loans allowed the women access to capital for crafts, food produciton or animal husbandry. The project grew and Grameen is now a registered bank. Members join Grameen Bank in groups of five, agreeing that if any member defaults on their loan, the others will not be able to receive
additional loans. This peer support network has led to better than 97% loan recovery rates.
Grameen found that by lending to women, profits were used to improve the family's quality of life, and led to a rise in the woman's status.

Today Grameen Bank lends more than $25 million each month to more than 2 million borrowers in 35,000 Bangldeshi villages. Established in 1992, the Grameen llrust serves people and organizations internationally who want to collaborate with Grameen in poverty alleviation. To date, the Trust has funded 58 Grameen replication projects in 22 countries. Many people and organizations want to know about Grameen and to discovery lead Yunus to establish experiment with it in their own courntries in search of an effective tool to remove poverty. The Grameen Bank Replication Program (GBRP) of Grameen Trust was initiated in response to this considerable and growing demand.

The GBRP is global in nature. Under this program, Grameen trust suports and promotes Grameen Bank replication projects all over the world. The novelty lies in the methodology followed by the Program in selecting, building up and implementing potential replications for poverty eradication.

Why is it that when confronted with poverty and hunger we cannot think of anything better than hand-outs? -Muhammad Yunus

Grameen At BYU
Thanks to the ambition of several students and faculty members, Brigham Young University is proud to sponsor Grameen Bank's first student chapter. BYU's Grameen Support Group was formed 1 September 1997 with the mission to educate the students and community on poverty alleviation through microcredit, and to support the microcredit projects in effect around the world.
Grameen Bank was founded in 1976 by Professor Muhammad Yunus, a teacher of economics at Chittagong University in Bangladesh. Yunus was disturbed by the poverty-stricken villages surrounding his community, and felt that the economic principles he was teaching in the classroom did not help to alleviate this problem. Searching for a better solution, he questioned the people. He discovered that people need access to capitol in order to escape poverty. This
microcredit, in the form of Grameen Bank, in Bangladesh.

Microcredit has been tried and tested both in Bangladesh through Grameen Bank, and around the world though Grameen [lust. It is a solution that works. Today, Grameen Bank loans over US$25 million to the poorest of the poor- in Bangladesh, and has a better than 97% repayment rate. These loans have raised employment, income, standard of living in the rural poors' lives. But most important, Grameen Bank has raised their human spirit.

Over the last decade, the microcredit effort has sparked much interest in the Americas. Grameen Foundation, the Americas' branch of Grameen Bank, was recently established in Washington D.C.. To help further the microcredit cause, Professor Yunus felt it a good idea to create the first Grameen Support Chapter at an American university. Today, Brigham Young University is privileged to be the home of Grameen's first student chapter.

The objectives of the BYU Grameen Support Group are:
1. Educate the campus and community on microcredit and microenterprise.
2. Motivate students and cornmunity members to actively support Grameen's commitment to reach 10,000,000 poor families through microfinance by the year 2005.
3. Raise funds to support microlending projects.
4. Organize students to translate microcredit literature.

BYU Grameen Support meets every Thursday at 8:30 PM in the Kennedy Center, 238 HRCB.
Come help make a difference!

Grameen: The Origin

In 1976, Professor Muhammad Yunus met a woman who earned only two pennnies a day making bamboo stools. He asked her why she made such a small amount for a day's work. The woman bought materials from a trader who also bought back the finished product to sell at the market. The trader was able to control her income because she depended on him for materials. The woman needed under one dollar to buy her own materials to make the bamboo stools, yet she was unable to save that amount from her two pennies a day.

Professor Yunus lent her the money, and along with forty-two other people in the village, she became one of the first borrowers from what would become the Grameen Bank. Now, this same woman is able to support her family. As she successfully repaid her loans, she was able to borrow greater amounts andhas earned enough to build a sturdy home with a tin roof.

"When we started the Grameen - Bank, pessimists told us again and again that what we were attempting to do, could not be done, " states Professor Yunus. Grameen Bank now lends to over two million people, and each day more people become borrowers of the Bank, starting on the road to a better life.

We have started believing the unbelievable-namely that the elimanation of poverty is feasible and that there is no reason whatsoever why anyone should remain poor on this planet. -Muhammad Yunus


THE FACES OF POVERTY

The richest fifth of the world population accounts for 82.7% of the gross national product, while the poorest fifth is 1.4%.

Poverty has a woman's face- of the 1.3 billion people living in extreme poverty, 70% are women.

Twenty percent of the world's population survives on less than US$1 per day.

Every minute of every day, 50 babies are born into extreme poverty. Of these, more than one in ten will die within the first week, usually due to a lack of proper nutrition, sanitation, or vaccinations.


 Calender of Events

 

Benefit Concert

Saturday, 25 October

(Time and Place TBA)

 

 Development Fair

Wednesday & Thursday, 12-13 November

BYU Campus

 

 Professor Muhammad Yunus

Thursday, 13 November

3:30 PM Varsity Theater, BYU

 

 Microcredit Conference

February 5th and 6th, l998

BYU Campus


 We can make the twentieth century the last century to no poverty. One day our children will visit museums and read books to learn about the conditions in which we allowed our fellow human beings to subsist, and they will be horrified. -Muhammad Yunus


For More Information

The BYU Grameen Support Group meets every Thursday at 8:30 PM in

238 HRCB (Kennedy Center Conference Room).

or

Call the BYU Grameen Support Office

(801 )378-3723

or email

microcredit@byu.edu


Send any questions or comments to chittagong@byu.edu

Page sponsored by: David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies