RIYADH, 15 October 2006 — “It’s very happy news for me and also for the nation. But it has burdened us with further responsibility,” said Dr. Mohammad Yunus, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Dr. Yunus of the Grameen Bank Project has become the first Bangladeshi and the third Bengali ever to receive the Noble Prize for his achievements in poverty alleviation and the empowerment of women.
For Yunus, 66, the award gives him fresh impetus against the global war on poverty. “Now the war against poverty will be further intensified across the world. It will consolidate the struggle against poverty through microcredit,” he said.
In a country born in 1971 and which has been going through the throes of economic and political upheaval, the award serves as a ray of hope and comfort. Yunus’ journey to build a more stable “rural” Bangladesh began in the 1970s when he lent a group of cane workers a few dollars to help them set up a small business while teaching at a college in Chittagong.
The gesture not only helped pave the way to a livelihood for the artisans but sowed the idea of a small scale loan project for struggling rural people in order for them to elevate themselves from the lowest strata of society.
He began with a handful of people in a small and poor village called Jorga and ended up with a Grameen family of sixty-six lakh. The Grameen idea has now been adopted in a 100 nations from the USA to Uganda with 97 percent participants being female.
I met Dr. Yunus at a family event a few years ago and was soon engrossed in his ideas. He invited me to visit one of his projects that had recently started. I visited his Grameen office and then one of his projects a year later where I was inspired not only by his dedication to his ideas but his confidence and belief that this was what the greater Bangladeshi majority needed — the means to avail of their skills and resources.
Set amid the waving rice and paddy fields and nestled between the greenery and riverine setting of a Bangladeshi village, the idea of the Grameen Project was taking off slowly but surely. I noticed that a majority of the Grameen family were women; not the educated and sophisticated urban women of the Bangladesh of today but the poorly educated, submissive, poverty-stricken rural women who had, hitherto, been the dependent and oppressed minority in a male dominated society.
I met groups of women who had come together to form teams to work together on their chosen ventures.
With my guide, Noorjahan Begum, the very dynamic general manager of the Grameen Group, I was able to sit in on one such meeting with a group of ladies that were poorly clad with swaddling babies.
The leader discussed progress with Noorjahan and handed over their collected savings/profits to be deposited at the bank. I visited their business sites and saw little single-room schools where girls of all ages were being given religious and practical education including information on their “rights” as women and laws related to marriage, property and childbirth.
It was refreshing to watch the confidence on their faces and in their personality as they proudly showed me around their “improved” living quarters with their husbands and fathers standing behind them.
Noorjahan Begum who has been with Dr. Yunus and his project from its inception in the small village believes that these women have come a long way through the Grameen Project.
She believes that education plays the greatest part in giving women the strength and confidence to stand up for themselves and offer support to their families as well.
Grameen encourages basic education for women as far as it provides them with the independence and security to deal with their lives and put their inherent skills to the best use.
Begum started with the Grameen project when she was approached, as a student of the same university where Yunus taught, to help reach out to women in order to empower them and also provide them with the means to self-sufficiency.
The modest looks and dress of Yunus (he is usually seen in long, loose tops made of Grameen checked cloth and loose cotton pants) belies his abilities and the strength of his conviction that a country can prosper at the grassroots level if given the opportunity and means and that empowerment of women adds to this factor as women are more dedicated and committed to their work.
He gives the example of a woman who borrowed a small sum of money to buy a mobile phone to provide communication to the people of her area. Not only was she able to do that but she was also able to set up a profitable business for herself and others. There have been many success stories. Women were able to purchase livestock, paddy fields and thus the birth of women entrepreneurs and in turn the alleviation of poverty.
When contacted on phone, Yunus expressed his satisfaction at having been “recognized” for the work he has done. “When a nation is suffering and there is discontent, they will find peace only when these aspects from their life are removed. Discontent from poverty breeds frustration and violence. Peace can come only when there is economic and emotional contentment,” he said.
Yunus believes corruption in a country comes as a result of political disunity and is a result of a lack of security and social needs.
He also believes that corruption can be removed with a united nation and facilities to all strata of the country. Poverty alleviation, according to him, has a strong impact in the betterment of a nation.
Yunus’ message to the youth of the country is to create their own world and do what they can in order to achieve success. He believes that if Grameen can achieve something unique for the betterment of poverty-stricken people then so could Bangladesh.
“He has worked for this for so long and I am happy that the world has finally got to know about his endeavors,” said Dr. Yunus’ daughter Dina, a student at the North South University in Dhaka.
Describing her mother, Dr. Afrozi Yunus, as the “woman behind the man” she mentioned how her mother had supported her father in sharing his hopes and disappointments.
“This is a symbol of our history of struggle, which encouraged us to go ahead fighting all odds,” said Yunus, thronged by hundreds of his joyful admirers when the award was announced.
