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Can’t Be Done or Can Be Done? |
Written by Leslie Kane, Executive Vice President, Grameen America, Inc.
on Thursday, 04 February 2010
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It was great to attend the 2010 Sundance Film Festival last week, where I was able to hear real Stories of Change. I was particularly impressed by one of the panels called “Can’t be Done”.
Conventional wisdom says some problems just can’t be fixed because they are too entrenched to remedy. These problems include poverty, public education, global warming. But, after attending the “Can’t be done!” panel, I once again began to assure myself that conventional wisdom is not always right.
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Written by Christopher Honess
on Monday, 01 February 2010
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Moving to New York City from small Syracuse, NY was a huge step for me. I had seen the effects of poverty on people in my hometown, but stepping into New York City as a freshman in college really opened my eyes to a whole new world. I had seen poverty in the Dominican Republic but did not believe that it existed on a large scale in the United States. My first day as an intern at Grameen America, a microfinance organization serving New York’s poor, was an even greater shock. In my internship I would be working at Grameen America’s main office, helping in whatever ways possible, but as an orientation, we first stopped by the Jackson Heights office. This stop would clue me in on what really made Grameen America work and ultimately succeed.
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To Catch a Dollar: Muhammad Yunus Banks on America |
Written by Grameen America
on Monday, 25 January 2010
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“Microcredit ignites the tiny economic engines of the rejected underclass of society. Once a large number of tiny engines start working, the stage can be set for bigger things” Professor Muhammad Yunus
Professor Muhammad Yunus never wanted to be a banker and he certainly never imagined winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Yet his quest to help the working poor invest in themselves led to both. Known as the father of microcredit loans in Bangladesh, Yunus spent years developing the Grameen Bank, and in 1983 it became a fully licensed bank with a twist—it was owned by its borrowers—mainly poor women.
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Written by Fehmida Malik
on Wednesday, 13 January 2010
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I want to bring you the advent of Grameen into the American landscape. Please check out the Time article - Can Microfinance Make It in America? - for more details.
Grameen America has started working in our cities such as Manhattan, Brooklyn and Omaha. The target demographic is the unbankable, a medley population of immigrants and women, living on subsistence level.
Grameen’s goal in the U.S is same as it is worldwide – to get poor entrepreneurs grow from a subsistence living to a livelihood.
The concept of microfinance is nothing new in America. As a student, I got my first credit offer reaching $3,000 in limit. Since then, I received options of using 0% credit for the next six months.
Who is unbankable in America anyway? At one time, banks were issuing credits to anyone and everyone! So, why is it that microfinancing wasn’t an American Dream that got sold to the world, but the other way around, it having to come to the U.S.?
What do we do with our microfinancing opportunity is the crux of the matter. Most all cases, microfinancing is issued as a consumer good. And we as consumers burn up our credit in perishable items.
That is why, not microfinancing, but what it is being used for by Grameen matters to us in America.
- Grameen America approaches those who have proven their entrepreneurship by selling for instance, food and trinkets in street corners. How can this unbankable entrepreneur be rewarded for his/her initiative? The answer lies in microcredit.
Remember to set aside a portion of the revenue to pay off debt!! Grameen America has a solution to this dilemma as well. It’s called peer-pressure.
- Microcredit is given to individual entrepreneurs in a group-lending setting. And the ability or the lack of it of one in the group to re-pay the loan on time affects the further lending capability of his/her peers.
But the bedrock of lending for Grameen America is its genuine interest in sustaining these entrepreneurs through education, ideas and support that relies on team building and networking groups.
Enfranchising the disenfranchised is also a piece of Americana.
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