Muhammad Yunus and Microcredit - Essay Example

He took the opportunity of taking a scholarship at Colorado where he finished his orientation course in Economics.

He came back to Bangladesh in 1972 when it was struggling to liberate itself from Pakistan. This was the time when he wanted to make a difference and became very active in the said struggle. He was part of the planning commission in charge of planning the economy. It was very remarkable to note that even with what he has achieved in life, he was passionate to help those poor people in Bangladesh to lift their lives out of poverty. He thought of steps and possible strategies as solutions to this problem.

According to Yunus, teaching well-designed economics strategies to his students was ineffectual when you see hungry people everywhere, old and young people looking alike. This was when the microcredit system was born. Yunus believed that the microcredit system was the optimal answer to fight poverty. The microcredit strategy includes providing credit to the poor without involving any collateral. He wanted to learn the realities of being poor and his experience in Jobra helped him realize that tiny loans offered to people for self-employment were one of the successful ways.

Grameen Bank was born and this started the economic revolution. Unlike the conventional banking system, Grameen bank does not require any collateral and extends its loans to those who are considered to be the poorest. The bank also focuses on women borrowers. To be able to make a loan, a villager must prove that her family owns not more than one-half acre of land. This system was way considered unusual. For someone to start this kind of system and exert efforts to help without any security, Yunus is an exceptional human being with so much passion to help the poor.

This microcredit system is therefore mainly based on mutual trust. This very successful strategy that started with 42 people was due to the person who has the heart to make people very happy with a small amount of money. As per Yunus after he started to lend money to the poor, the only question in his mind was “How do I do more of this?” This question led eventually to more than 250 institutions operating microcredit systems in more than 100 countries based on the Grameen Bank model. Yunus indeed is a real “Banker to the poor”.