Today Daniel and I took an adventure to a real coffee shop. None of this powdered bullshit but real coffee from a proper machine. I sat down to finish my Muhammad Yunus book "Banker to the Poor" and the rain came... when I say rain I do not mean the Tacoma conventional drizzle that graces us every fall to spring but a true tropical torrential downpour. Needless to say, I will not be leaving this coffee shop for a while!
I really wanted to do this posting on the book I just finished. Yunus is my new political economical hero! He is the founder of micro finance and a Nobel peace prizewinner. Muhammad Yunus, the founding father of micro finance, created the worlds most profitable micro finance scheme. He began in his home country of Bangladesh. As a professor of economics with a PHD, Yunus saw the immense amount of poverty that surrounded his home community. He began experimenting with small loans to the poorest women. Creating such a successful micro credit structure was not simple. Besides starting slowly, Yunus had to gain trust of the Bangladeshi government, USAID and many more. Additionally he only hired people who would dedicate their entire lives to Grameen just as he did. Today his founding micro finance bank, Grameen, gives millions of loans 94% of which are women[1]. His idea has spread over the entire world reaching Asia, Africa, Europe, and north and South America. In his words “Micro-credit may not be a cure-all, but it is a force for change not only economical and personal, but also social and political.”
In my study of micro finance in Durban I have struggled to find a micro credit structure to that similar of Grameen Bank. This structure is a bottom up run program. The borrowers own the majority of the company and are its means to success. Without them loans could not continue to circulate and the company would never have sounds self-sustainability. Instead of a tyrannical system of loan sharks that bang on your door once a week, Grameen works on a group accountability basis. Groups of five, preferably women, join and are responsible for the pay back of all of their loans collectively. This program teaches business management as well as personal responsibility and accountability.
It teaches rural women that the door out of poverty can be in their hands. Yunus targets women because they are the poorest of the poor in our world. This pro-poor structure enables the micro credit sector to target a generally forgotten about group. It also combats gender inequality issues while elevating the “bottom 20% of the population in poverty”. His book has further stemmed my interest in women’s issues whether they be in micro finance or conflict resolution I believe I may have found my niche.
On a similar note, today I had an interview with the African Center for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (accord) www.accord.co.za. I am pretty sure I will end up spending my next summer working for them as an internship. They have just launched a new program on women in conflict resolution in Eastern Africa. If I do land an internship here, I will be on the committee for research in this section. Lets hope this will lead to a senior thesis idea and maybe future job!
Ok all for now time to enjoy my 20th Birthday
