Microfinance in Action

They meet once a week, although in a community like this, meeting is commonplace.  This meeting has intention, beginning each time with a declaration of 17 oaths each of the women vow to keep in order for retention of their membership in this microfinance group.  Simple recitation of the oaths, let alone its individual connotations may scream ‘socialism!’ to bank members in the West; however, these women rise in confidence, in unison, “We will send our children to school.  We will adopt family planning practices and keep our family size small.  We will construct sanitary latrines in our households and only use them for defecation….”  I begin to realize, this is much more than a loan.

Leelee, a bright young woman no more than 30 shares her story: 23,000 Taka (~$300US) is her current loan; she pays back 600 Taka per week from the rice cultivation she is doing on the land she was able to lease with the loan.  Others use their loans to buy rickshaws for their husbands to drive or livestock to raise and sell off in Dhaka.  A sea of smiles and saris surrounds me with valiant tales to tell and progress to expose.  I watch with alacrity as the committee leader gathers the weekly payments in the center of the cirlce, counting bills into a pan.  School has just let out; all the children and husbands are there to observe the strange fair-skinned strangers.  Globalization has made this confluence of culture particularly interesting as many of the local men have cell phones – equipped of course with cameras – technology flashes both ways now.

As I sit, barefoot, cross-legged on this meager tweed mat in the beating sun amid 25 entrepreneurial, rural Bengali women, a pair of wrinkled, shy eyes lit up next to me.  Beginning with a universally-understood smile, glances and giggles were exchanged with the woman whom I came to know as Shulie.  Shulie had been in the BRAC microfinance group for 20 years now.  “Now, men and women, everything is equal.  Everything is better.”  I wonder if she would tell us otherwise – the BRAC supervisor sat five feet from me and administered all the translating.  Nonetheless, here she sat, on her own, representing her family as the receiver of loans and distributor of funds to her husband; a position highly unliklely 30 years ago.  When prompted to return any questions to the foreign audience sharing the meeting this morning, the women only responded, “There are so many more people to help.  Please help all the poor people in all the villages.”