Blog 2

After reading more of Yunus' books, Creating a World Without Poverty and Banker to the Poor, I am starting to gain better understanding of Yunus' ingenuity and the uniqueness of the Grameen programs. I think that is is important that all anti-poverty programs lean from Grameen's success, and start to focus on creating a program to fit the people rather than trying to fit a person into an incompatible mold. For Yunus to start with only a concept and no previous banking experience and have the success he did is unbelievable. This should signal to people that it can be done and poverty can be eradicated. I had only brief knowledge of the extent of poverty and illiteracy rates in Bangladesh, and for Yunus to address both issues with his social business concept is amazing. I also found it interesting that Yunus puts such an emphasis on helping women in order to bring the Bangladeshis out of poverty. Also, I think that it was very beneficial to develop strict guidelines and criteria to define poverty, especially with such an overwhelming number of people that need help.

The excerpts from the book prompted me to think about if a Grameen-inspired program would experience similar success in areas of Kentucky, such as Appalachia, that are experiencing poverty on a large scale. After brief research, I found that some micro-credit programs do exist in Appalachia (arc.gov), but I had not heard of their methods or progress. We briefly discussed this topic in class, and I still believe that it would be harder to start a micro-credit program in an already developed nation and have it experience success comparable to that of the Grameen Programs. For this reason, I think that it would benefit other developing nations, such as those in Africa or Southeast Asia, to follow the Grameen structures, but on the other hand, a new plan should be applied to help those in already developed nations that are in poverty.

A quote of Yunus that I found interesting was in Creating a World Without Poverty, page 115: "I am opposed to giveaways and handouts. They take away initiative and responsibility from people. If people know that things can be received 'free', they tend to spend their energy and skill chasing the 'free' things rather than using the same energy and skill to accomplish things on their own. Handouts encourage dependence rather than self-help and confidence." This quote led me to believe that Yunus' ideology differ from philanthropy. Philanthropy is defined as 'altruistic concern for human welfare and advancement, usually manifested by donations of money, property, or work...'. Although Yunus' idea may have initially manifested itself as philanthropic, his new stresses on turning Grameen programs into social businesses have caused the programs to shift away from philanthropy. The programs needed some sort of philanthropy to get up and running, but because Yunus is intent on getting Grameen programs to a point of self-sufficiency, they are no longer reliant on donations, and therefore, philanthropy does not apply.

Service, on the other hand, still connects to Grameen programs. Two commonly used definitions of service include the use of service to describe a product, or output, of a company, and also, service can also be defined as an helpful activity, or aid. The first definition of 'service' clearly applies because a majority of Grameen programs provide services to people of the community. This would include, for example, Grameen Cybernet, Grameen Phone, and Grameen Telecom. The second definition of 'service' still apply because more fortunate people, such as graduating students, Yunus himself, and others that hold other occupations or social status, often help out with Grameen programs and other impoverished people. The Grameen ideas can be considered a 'self-help' service, because one of their biggest contributions is giving people in need the resources they need to help themselves.