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Teach a man to fish..!

By Robert Clements. Dated: 11/23/2015 9:31:09 AM

"..Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Provide him with a net and you feed him for a lifetime…"
—Adapted Chinese proverb.
Something that bothers me as I hear about a world that is getting more economically sound is that the rich get richer and the poor poorer. We give lip service to thoughts and ideas on how to help the poor; put down our car windows at signals as we hand a few coins to beggars and that's all!
We the well off minority care a damn for the economically backward majority!
Over thirty five years back, a young professor of economics went for a walk in a village adjoining his university in Chittagong, Bangladesh. While there, he met a poor widow, Sufiya Begum, who tried to make a living by constructing and selling bamboo stools. She worked hard the whole day, and yet her daily net earning was just 2 cents.
Why?... because she had to take a daily loan for buying bamboos from the local moneylender, who charged exorbitant interest, and whose lending condition was that she sells her produce to him at a price decided by him!!!
She was poor - not because she lacked skills, or because she was lazy - but because she did not have access to working capital. All she needed was 27cents to get out of this vicious cycle. The kind professor gave her 27 cents... but then, also went on to find out how many others in the village lived on an income of less than $1 a day. To his amazement - and dismay - he found there were 42 such able-bodied skilled working people, whose total requirement to end their poverty was just $27!
He gave them that sum as loan, which they could use to break out of the cycle of poverty... and they returned the loan in due course. It was such an easy solution. Academically, this simple insight had a simple answer: Get the banks to give loans to the poor. But the banks refused: how could they give loans to people who had no collateral to offer? What if they defaulted? And since they owned nothing you couldn't take back anything from them, could you?
Failing to convince the regular commercial banks to lend money, the professor decided to create a bank for the poor! This led to the establishment of Grameen Bank - the "barefoot bank" - in 1983. The professor of economics, you guessed, was Professor Muhammad Yunus, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2006. The rest, as they say, is history…
Today, the Grameen Bank has 6.6mn borrowers of which 97% are women. It has 2,226 branches operating in more than 71,000 villages of Bangladesh, supported by a staff of around 18,000. It offers loan without any collateral, legal instrument, group-guarantee or joint liability. Has provided loans of about $5.7bn since its inception
Has remained profitable all through its existence, except for 3 years, does not rely on external funding or donations since 1995 (has paid back its loans since then).
And most importantly has helped about 58% of its borrowers to cross the poverty line..!
Whether we are a developed nation or an individual who is financially sound let us like Professor Yunus, provide the poor with nets to fish..!
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