Nobel laureate Yunus plans 'poverty museum' in Bangladesh

from Yahoo News India

By IANS
Saturday November 17, 10:32 PM

Pune, (IANS) Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus plans to build a 'poverty museum' in Bangladesh - after eradicating poverty in his country by 2030.

'I have set a date of 2030 when not a single person in Bangladesh will be poor. Then we will build a poverty museum to show it to our children,' Yunus said at the inaugural of the International Hi-Tech Agri week here Saturday.

He also asked Maharashtra, among India's most industrialised states, to do more to remove poverty.

'May I propose Maharashtra to compete in who will build the first poverty museum,' he gently added.

Yunus discussed his astounding idea to launch a bank to provide micro-finance for poor Bangladeshi women - an initiative that won him and the bank the Nobel Peace prize in 2006.

'I was a professor teaching in a university. I wanted to help the poor in a nearby village. It was then that I saw how moneylenders were sucking the poor for a little amount of money. I made a list of 40 people who owed a mere 866 takas and I repaid their loan out of my pocket,' he said.

That was the beginning of a pioneering move that has inspired similar projects across the globe.

The economist applied for a licence to start a bank. 'And today we have seven and half million borrowers, most of them women.'

Yunus recalled when the Nobel Committee called to invite him to receive the coveted prize, he told them that since the award was split between him and Grameen Bank, it made sense to invite all the bank owners to Oslo, Norway.

'I told him that the bank was owned by seven and a half million people. For a moment there was complete silence, since there are a mere four and half million people in Norway, and then I said only nine elected representatives along with their families will come.'

He said that while other banks tell people if they are creditworthy, Grameen Bank is based on the principle that the people should tell the bank whether it is 'people-worthy'.

'Conventional banks look for a rich man, and we look for poor women.'

Moreover, Grameen bank takes no collateral security and there is no legal action in case of default.

'I tell my employees, if a woman says 'I don't want a loan' then that's the one you are looking for. Because, I believe if a woman says 'I cannot do anything only my husband handles cash', it is the years and years of social pressure which makes her say that. Every human being has a potential.'

As If this was not enough, Grammen Bank recently started giving loans to beggars and more than 100,000 beggars in Bangladesh have availed loans from it.

'But in return we ask the beggars to go with merchandise from one house to another. As a result, 10,000 beggars have stopped begging and the rest have turned to begging only part-time,' Yunus said.

According to Yunus, because of the bank's efforts, poverty in his country has started to decline by almost two percent a year. Thus, Bangladesh will have only half the number of the poor by 2015 and it would get rid of the menace by 2030.