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Image from the Medal of Freedom Awards |
Written by Malorye Allison
on Friday, 28 August 2009
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Recipients of the Medal of Freedom, in addition to microfinance pioneer Dr. Muhammad Yunus, were:
Film star Sidney Poitier.
Civil rights icon the Rev. Joseph Lowery.
Tennis legend Billie Jean King.
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
Retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.. (He did not attend the ceremony and his daughter, Kara, accepted the award on his behalf.)
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Muhammad Yunus Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom: Live Webcast by the White House |
Written by Jenene Allison
on Wednesday, 12 August 2009
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Imagine driving downtown and there are no poor people pushing shopping carts full of their belongings. Watching a movie on TV and there are no ads asking you to donate a few dollars a month to support a hungry child. Reading that the Free and Reduced Lunch program in your public school district has been eliminated because poor students now get enough to eat at home. Imagine the end of poverty.
Professor Muhammed Yunus not only imagines it, he has spent the last 35 years working to make it happen. For his vision and his work, Muhammed Yunus will receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama today. He joins other distinguished agents of change like Desmond Tutu and Edward Kennedy who are being similarly honored with a Medal of Freedom for what the President calls “one overarching trait: each has been an agent of change. Each saw an imperfect world and set about improving it…”
The White House will be streaming the Presidential Medal of Freedom Awards Ceremony live today beginning 3:10 p.m. EDT. CNN will also be covering portions of the ceremony.
A professor of Economics at Chittagong University in Bangladesh, Yunus began working to end poverty when he started making very small loans out of his own pocket to impoverished women in 1974. He went on to become a global pioneer in the microcredit movement, establishing the Grameen (‘village’) Bank in 1983.
Today Grameen has more than 7.5 million borrowers, 65% of whom have successfully used the loans they received to start and run a small business as a means of working their way out of poverty. Grameen Bank is a global organization and recently launched a first U.S. branch in Queens, New York. Grameen America will continue to grow in the United States, providing the means to lift people out of poverty through small, low-interest, collateral-free loans. A branch in Omaha, Nebraska, is just being established, and there are plans for a branch in Boston, Massachusetts.
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Grameen: Banking on Relationships |
Written by Jenene Allison and Malorye Allison
on Thursday, 30 July 2009
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“It takes a village” is not a platitude when it comes to alleviating poverty—it’s an action plan. Grameen means “village” or “rural” in Bengla: The microlender by that name, Grameen Bank , was founded by Nobel Laureate Muhammed Yunus in Bangladesh in 1983 and is based on the type of relationships people in small villages develop over time.
Just like at a typical bank, money changes hands, loans are made and repaid, and interest is charged. The actual money and the supporting documents, however, are not exchanged anonymously through a financial institution’s post office box. They are passed from hand to hand.
Whether based in Kosovo, Zambia, or New York City, a Grameen banker goes into the community to connect with a prospective lender. The banker isn’t looking for someone with a good credit history or collateral, but rather someone living in poverty who could use a small loan to start or expand a business.
A unique and important feature of Grameen banks is that to become a borrower, you need to find four friends or acquaintances in your community who are also interested in getting loans. Every prospective borrower participates in a week-long training before they are eligible for a loan. The training session weeds out those who are not determined or sincere. At the end of the training, each group decides who among them will receive the first loan. That borrower must start repaying their loan before the next member of the group can receive one.
As the businesses grow and the loans are repaid, the borrowers become eligible for larger loans. Meanwhile, the bankers and each group of 5 continue to meet regularly and grow to know each other better.
This is how millions of businesses have been born in some of the world’s poorest regions. Some Grameen borrowers sell access to cell phones, make baskets, or offer services needed in their communities.
These close ties between bankers and borrowers may explain why even in an era of ‘toxic’ debt, the “bank for the poor” boasts a 95% loan repayment rate. Most recently, Grameen America has launched a branch in Queens, New York, and one in Omaha, Nebraska, with plans underway for another branch in Boston, Massachusetts. The activities that these Grameen America borrowers pursue are different from those borrowers in other parts of the world, and the size of the loans is usually larger in the U.S., but the relationships are built the same way.
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Bill Introduced to Honor Yunus With Congressional Gold Medal |
Written by Jenene Allison
on Wednesday, 15 July 2009
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Muhammad Yunus’ work against poverty has caught the attention of the U.S. Congress, even in the midst of the recession, and in March a bill was introduced to honor him with a Congressional Gold Medal for his “contributions to the fight against global poverty." Yunus founded Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983. He and the bank were awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.
The proposed bill notes Yunus’ work on behalf of the poorest of the poor: “the more than 1,400,000,000 people, mostly women and children, who live on less than $1.25 a day, and the 2,600,000,000 people who live on less than $2 a day…” Microfinance is spreading all over the globe now. Grameen America has launched a branch in Queens, New York, and one in Omaha, Nebraska, with plans underway for another branch in Boston, Massachusetts.
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