This time we were assigned to watch a video Muhammad Yunus.
The video Lecture by was a guest.About what made Muhammad Yunus to come up with the idea of a Grameen bank and how did he Pursue his dreams.
The video was an eyeopener for us, and with a session of Dr Mandi, The impressions of the idea has got deeply engraved into our minds.
Muhammad Yunus is that rare thing; a bona fide visionary. His dream is the total eradication of poverty from the world. In 1983, against the advice of banking and government officials, Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with minuscule loans. Grameen Bank, based on the belief that credit is a basic human right, not the privilege of a fortunate few, now provides over 2.5 billion dollars of micro-loans to more than two million families in rural Bangladesh. Ninety-six percent of Yunus's clients are women, and repayment rates are near 100 percent. Around the world, micro-lending programs inspired by Grameen are blossoming, with more than three hundred programs established in the United States alone. Banker to the Poor is Muhammad Yunus's memoir of how he decided to change his life in order to help the world's poor. In it he traces the intellectual and spiritual journey that led him to fundamentally rethink the economic relationship between rich and poor, and the challenges he and his colleagues faced in founding Grameen. He also provides wise, hopeful guidance for anyone who would like to join him in ''putting homelessness and destitution in a museum so that one day our children will visit it and ask how we could have allowed such a terrible thing to go on for so long.'' The definitive history of micro-credit direct from the man that conceived of it, Banker to the Poor is necessary and inspirational reading for anyone interested in economics, public policy, philanthropy, social history, and business. Muhammad Yunus was born in Bangladesh and earned his Ph.D. in economics in the United States at Vanderbilt University, where he was deeply influenced by the civil rights movement. He still lives in Bangladesh, and travels widely around the world on behalf of Grameen Bank and the concept of micro-credit.
In 1972, Yunus returned to Bangladesh after eight years as a student and professor in the US and became a professor of economics. He had no intentions of becoming a banker. Bangladesh had been devastated by its War of Liberation and a famine followed shortly thereafter. In his autobiography and again in an interview with me, Yunus has told me how the faces of silent starving people haunted him, and his economic theories seemed like fairytales, totally useless (Yunus, 1999; Interview, 2010). He wanted desperately to be helpful. In the nearby village of Jobra, he set up a cooperative with farmers and landowners to grow rice more efficiently. The yield at the end of the season was high but he discovered the farmers had robbed him of his share of the profits.
Seeking another way to help the poor, Yunus took groups of his students and colleagues for numerous field trips to Jobra to learn about poverty. One day he lent some small amounts of money, less than twenty-seven dollars in all, to forty-two impoverished villagers. To his surprise, they paid him back. He discovered over the next months and years that not only do the poor pay back their loans even without any collateral, but also they pay back at rates far higher than the 60% rate that was typical of commercial banks. This was the defining moment for Yunus (Yunus, 1999). He had found a practical way to help.
The early years of his organization were rocky. In spite of Yunus' impressive results, none of the bankers in the region would help Yunus expand his experimental project. They just didn't believe Yunus' reports or his numbers. Eventually, in 1983, after years of negotiating with skeptical bankers and haggling reluctant government officials, the Bangladesh government recognized his organization, now called the Grameen (village) Bank as an independent bank.
Yunus turned conventional banking practices completely upside down. Not only did he lend to the poor with no collateral, which was unheard of, but also, when he discovered that women used loans to improve the situation of their family more often than men did, he focused on lending to women. When he started out, only 2% of bank borrowers in Bangladesh were women. In the 1980s, women in Bangladeshi villages spent their lives in the confines of their family compounds and many had never even touched money.
As the years passed, Yunus succeeded in attracting women so that today 98% of the Bank's borrowers are women. Locating his
branches in remote villages, he brought the bank to the people rather making them travel to the larger towns and cities.
Other banks lent to individuals but instead Yunus required borrowers at Grameen to form peer support groups and to use their loan for a small business. At first Yunus thought all the borrowers in a group should be in the same kind of business. From trial and error, Yunus learned that groups of five worked better than ten and that having a mix of different kinds of businesses in each group was more productive than single business groups.
Lessons from Muhammad Yunus about Leading Long-term Change
1. Set forth an inspiring vision and stick with it.
2. Innovate. Challenge the prevailing wisdom.
3. Build a team that owns the dream.
4. Communicate. Relentlessly communicate within and beyond the organization.
5. Be Flexible. Change strategies, goals, and tactics as needed.
6. Be patient and persevere. Sometimes you have to wait.
7. Embed your values into the organizational culture.
8. Brand yourself and your organization.
The video Lecture by was a guest.About what made Muhammad Yunus to come up with the idea of a Grameen bank and how did he Pursue his dreams.
The video was an eyeopener for us, and with a session of Dr Mandi, The impressions of the idea has got deeply engraved into our minds.
Muhammad Yunus is that rare thing; a bona fide visionary. His dream is the total eradication of poverty from the world. In 1983, against the advice of banking and government officials, Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with minuscule loans. Grameen Bank, based on the belief that credit is a basic human right, not the privilege of a fortunate few, now provides over 2.5 billion dollars of micro-loans to more than two million families in rural Bangladesh. Ninety-six percent of Yunus's clients are women, and repayment rates are near 100 percent. Around the world, micro-lending programs inspired by Grameen are blossoming, with more than three hundred programs established in the United States alone. Banker to the Poor is Muhammad Yunus's memoir of how he decided to change his life in order to help the world's poor. In it he traces the intellectual and spiritual journey that led him to fundamentally rethink the economic relationship between rich and poor, and the challenges he and his colleagues faced in founding Grameen. He also provides wise, hopeful guidance for anyone who would like to join him in ''putting homelessness and destitution in a museum so that one day our children will visit it and ask how we could have allowed such a terrible thing to go on for so long.'' The definitive history of micro-credit direct from the man that conceived of it, Banker to the Poor is necessary and inspirational reading for anyone interested in economics, public policy, philanthropy, social history, and business. Muhammad Yunus was born in Bangladesh and earned his Ph.D. in economics in the United States at Vanderbilt University, where he was deeply influenced by the civil rights movement. He still lives in Bangladesh, and travels widely around the world on behalf of Grameen Bank and the concept of micro-credit.
In 1972, Yunus returned to Bangladesh after eight years as a student and professor in the US and became a professor of economics. He had no intentions of becoming a banker. Bangladesh had been devastated by its War of Liberation and a famine followed shortly thereafter. In his autobiography and again in an interview with me, Yunus has told me how the faces of silent starving people haunted him, and his economic theories seemed like fairytales, totally useless (Yunus, 1999; Interview, 2010). He wanted desperately to be helpful. In the nearby village of Jobra, he set up a cooperative with farmers and landowners to grow rice more efficiently. The yield at the end of the season was high but he discovered the farmers had robbed him of his share of the profits.
Seeking another way to help the poor, Yunus took groups of his students and colleagues for numerous field trips to Jobra to learn about poverty. One day he lent some small amounts of money, less than twenty-seven dollars in all, to forty-two impoverished villagers. To his surprise, they paid him back. He discovered over the next months and years that not only do the poor pay back their loans even without any collateral, but also they pay back at rates far higher than the 60% rate that was typical of commercial banks. This was the defining moment for Yunus (Yunus, 1999). He had found a practical way to help.
The early years of his organization were rocky. In spite of Yunus' impressive results, none of the bankers in the region would help Yunus expand his experimental project. They just didn't believe Yunus' reports or his numbers. Eventually, in 1983, after years of negotiating with skeptical bankers and haggling reluctant government officials, the Bangladesh government recognized his organization, now called the Grameen (village) Bank as an independent bank.
Yunus turned conventional banking practices completely upside down. Not only did he lend to the poor with no collateral, which was unheard of, but also, when he discovered that women used loans to improve the situation of their family more often than men did, he focused on lending to women. When he started out, only 2% of bank borrowers in Bangladesh were women. In the 1980s, women in Bangladeshi villages spent their lives in the confines of their family compounds and many had never even touched money.
As the years passed, Yunus succeeded in attracting women so that today 98% of the Bank's borrowers are women. Locating his
branches in remote villages, he brought the bank to the people rather making them travel to the larger towns and cities.
Other banks lent to individuals but instead Yunus required borrowers at Grameen to form peer support groups and to use their loan for a small business. At first Yunus thought all the borrowers in a group should be in the same kind of business. From trial and error, Yunus learned that groups of five worked better than ten and that having a mix of different kinds of businesses in each group was more productive than single business groups.
Lessons from Muhammad Yunus about Leading Long-term Change
1. Set forth an inspiring vision and stick with it.
2. Innovate. Challenge the prevailing wisdom.
3. Build a team that owns the dream.
4. Communicate. Relentlessly communicate within and beyond the organization.
5. Be Flexible. Change strategies, goals, and tactics as needed.
6. Be patient and persevere. Sometimes you have to wait.
7. Embed your values into the organizational culture.
8. Brand yourself and your organization.
No comments:
Post a Comment