Saturday, January 16, 2010

Micro-Finance at the Village Level


One of the highlights of our stay in Bangladesh was a visit to a village north of Dhaka where the Grameen Bank had made loans to women. We drove on narrow roads through small village towns whose markets teemed with produce, cigarettes, and spices. Joining a group of women at the centre meeting, a weekly occurence when the women make their loan installments and talk amongst themselves, we heard the stories of their successes. We toured the village and several people would show us into their homes.


The children loved seeing us!



When we returned to Dhaka, we visited with the top two women of Grameen Bank who have worked there with Dr. Yunus since the bank's inception. To provide a sense of the other end of the spectrum of entrepreneurship, we had dinner with a group of entrepreneurs at a private home, where we connected with an incredible group of women who are passionate about their country and have worked hard to improve the role of women in Bangladeshi society. And their sarees were to die for! We saw many of the women the next day at a roundtable where we talked about women's issues.

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