More Insights from Field

During my internship, one of my responsibilities was to write assessment reports about the branches that I visited. My visits to the branches were helpful in two ways. First, Grameen Bank was not the tall building that I went to everyday in Mirpur-2, the real Grameen Bank , and the practice was in the field. The head office was dealing with more administrative stuff and they were the policy-makers. Working in the field was a good chance for me to make some contribution to the whole idea of micro finance at the policy level. Second, in the field, I was able to see the real practice of micro finance. Here is a c couple of my sample visits.

One of the branches that I visited was located in Norsindi Area., The name of the branch was

Dangai Polash. Danga Branch had 5734 members in total. Of these members were 1700 male, 4034 were female. So, GB also gives loans to men although their main target is women. One particular aspect of Bangladeshi society is that women are pretty much invisible in daily life. They do the work at home. This immobility affects the functioning of micro finance. Most of the time when women get their loans, they hand them in to their husbands, because men are more mobile in the villages and more experienced in the market due to patriarchal culture. This situation was not problematic whatsoever for GB. For GB, it does not matter much who uses the money or who controls it, eventually development is development and it is beneficial for the whole family, for the local economy. So, except for the books that M. Yunus had written and official documents that were written for the western world, you do not see any practical application of gender sensitivity in the functioning of the program. There is nothing about gender. The whole system seems to be built on given gender structure.

At the branch, there were also the beggars, who were around 99. Under this branch there were 78 centres managed by 8 centre managers. Total staff number was 10. Total members are more than 5 thousands. So, one centre manager deals with so many members. There were also non-Grameen members who put money in their savings account. The number of the non-members was around 800. In order to get loan, members have to go thorough one week training where they learn about how the program works. If they pass the training, and if centre manager thinks that the group is ready, the branch manager pays a last visit to the member's house for final control. If everything goes well, members come to office and collect their first installments.

At this branch, after getting basic introduction from the Branch manager, I did my routine observation in the office while the members were collecting their loans. Centre managers were also coming in before noon in order to bring the money they collected during centre meetings. The members in the community were doing a variety of economic activities. Some of the economic activities that drew my attention were: Brick and sand construction, cloth making, grocery shops, growing vegetables and growing chicken and cow milk. Below is some photos of the borrowers at work.

At this branch, besides micro loans, I also learnt about how saving and GPS programs worked. It is just very interesting to see people coming in with some cash in their hands like you are in a normal commercial bank and walk up to the branch manager's table and get their deposit recorded on their bank book. There, I interviewed many borrowers. I met a member who had been a member since the inception of Grameen Bank. It was unbelievable to see that GB was such an important organization in people's life in rural Bangladesh. Members getting loans from GB for 20-25 years maybe even longer years. Members that I talked to were overall happy with the loan they were receiving. Many of them indicated that Grameen was the only institution they could rely on at that time . They were poor and had no business with commercial banks. During my individual house visits, I met with members with different economic background. The members I met, some were basic loan users, and some were micro enterprise loan users. In the individual house meetings, I asked the members about their economic activities and how they found Grameen Bank in general. Overall reaction was very positive. The only issue raised by the members was about the housing loan, which was mostly raised by male members. Later, I learnt that this loan was not operating in the region.

GB also runs a project through one of its sister companies called Grameen Shakti. This company provided renewable and affordable energy systems for low-income people. Bio-gas and solar power are the main components of this project. It is beyond my imagination that all a single family needs for bio - operated stove is just seven cows . With the installation of the necessary equipments under ground next to a small pool where animal waste is piled up, you get free natural gas!. Seeing it worked just blew my mind. It is quite something.

Although this project was fairly new, I learnt a lot about it. In Rajbari, in order to get a sense of education situation, I visited two schools and received information first hand from the principals and also the teachers.

At the school, there were students who took Grameen Scholarships and Education Loan as well. I interviewed one student who took an education loan. He was very hopeful about his future and was sure he would do his best to pay the loan back after graduation. Like in my other visits in other locations, here, I also visited an area office and met with the manager and the staff members. They were the real laborers.

Area manager is superior in rank than branch managers and does the final approval of loan applications. The area office is fully computerized and plays an important role between branch and head office.