miércoles, 30 de marzo de 2011

Muhammad Yunus Savior or Thief?

Muhammad Yunus was born on 28 June 1940 to a Muslim family in the village of Bathua, India. In 1957, he studied economics at Dhaka University and completed his BA in 1960 and MA in 1961. After receiving his PhD in the United States he had an idea for a new type of government called Gram Sarkar (the village government) in 2003. This created a new layer in the governmental system, but it was found illegal and unconstitutional by the High Court and was ended.
On October 1st 1983 the Grammen Bank was created. The idea was to give small loans to women living in poverty in India. He thought women deserved these loans because unlike men they would spend their money on their businesses and help their families. Until July 2007, Grameen Bank issued US$ 6.38 billion to 7.4 million women. To ensure repayment, the bank uses a system of "solidarity groups". Small groups apply together for loans each member of the group is called co-guarantors and make a promise of repayment if one member is not able to. This system created a unified team and was very successful.
In 2006 Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize. His idea has spread all over the world and many countries have followed his example. But in November 2010 things changed, the government turned against Yunus saying that he was a thief and was “sucking blood from the poor”. Finally, in March 2011 he was sacked from his position at Grammen Bank.
There is a lot of controversy about Yunus, some say he is an angel sent from heaven while others say he is the worst type of devil. In my opinion, his ideas were meant to help people, to help his own people to improve their way of life. Why would he create such a phenomenon idea if he had only wanted to steal from the poor?
 

2 comentarios:

  1. I completely agree with you, Barbara. very interesting post and well-written, too!

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  2. That was interesting Barbara, a good choice for a blog. It is very hard to tell what is happening in India and to choose the right side. We don´t know if he really was stealing or not but the idea that he had come up did help people. So, maybe, even though he did profit a little from the program I´m sure even more people profited from his ideas. To be given a Nobel Peace Prize doesn´t come easy and not everyone with good ideas are given one. This proves, in a way, that he did change the way the world thinks about the poor and giving a loan rather than charity. It´s easy to give charity and then forget about the problem, but the best solution is to give people a way to get out of the hole they are in. I think if more institutions used these ideas the poverty level would reduce and there would be more middle class than lower class.

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