Grameen Bank

Muhammad Yunus was born on 28 June 1940 and is a Bangladeshi banker, economist, Head of the Rural Economics Program at the University of Chittagong, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient for his efforts to create economic and social development from below.He developed concepts of microcredit and microfinance and found a bank that works solely for the poor, ‘Grameen Bank.’ 

The Grameen Bank gives small loans to the poor people without requiring any form of security. Instead a group ensures that the borrowers utilize the loan in a productive manner which embraces the skills that they have. What’s interesting about the bank is that the majority of borrowers are women; this has enabled women to raise their status, become less dependent on their husbands and improve the standard of living of their homes and children. 

The U.S. President, Barack Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom on 12 August 2009, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to 16 people for making a difference in the world, and being agents of change, out of which one of them was Muhammad Yunus. President Obama said: "They remind us that we each have it within our power to fulfill dreams, to advance the dreams of others, and to remake the world for our children." 

His ideas were and still are innovative. He challenged main-stream economics, and brought forth something new that truly helped the masses of his country and is now helping countries all over the world.

His idea of empowering women is also worth writing about because in a country where women are given hardly any rights he decided to empower them, to give them the right to take loans and build on the skills that they have (example: embroidery) and hence become independent. Also, once women and men are both productive in a country, it leads to economic growth. Without the productiveness of both the male and female population, economic growth is highly unattainable, demonstrating Muhammad Yunus’ long term vision.

The best thing about the ‘Grameen Bank’ was that it helped break the vicious cycle that would have carried on for centuries to come. The fact that it has helped 21,000 students from illiterate poor families to attend engineering schools and medical schools ensures that the new generation will break through and bring prosperity to Bangladesh.

Muhammad Yunus began at such a small scale, and what inspired him was to make the condition of the people of his country better. This patriotic spirit is something we all have lost along the way and reading about his achievements is inspirational. Grameen Bank signifies change and the emergence of new ideas and their success.

The emergence of this Bank has shed light upon the concept of every human being having the right to live a healthy life with at least the necessities, and this bank has proved that the poorest of people if given the chance can be agents of change in their own lives, and develop into successful individuals in their own small ways. No one wants to be poor, no one chooses to be poor, and it’s the lack of opportunity that pushes people towards poverty. And micro-credit is one of the opportunities that Muhammad Yunus provided through his bank in order to do away with poverty.