An instance of a Grameen Bank in the Philippines

Here’s an interview with Fr. Sean Connaughton on his work in the Philippines in setting up a Grameen Bank. It tells some of the experiences and the ways how they implemented it with the people.

Although I do not know yet of the details on how the Grameen Bank or its microcredit program strategize to help support the starting little successes of these small entrepreneurial endeavors of the borrowers, I believe the key here is helping them discover their potentials and providing them education that could help gradually widen their perspective.

For me and for now, I would like to see us Filipinos start learning simple creative products the Japanese have produced and continue to produce.

‘bank had never lent money to an illiterate woman’

Normal logic would tell us that business should be profitable. Banks, for its business safety, check borrowers for its capacity to repay loans and as much as possible to have a collateral or guarantor.

Grameen Bank, Bangladesh defies this common sense and puts its faith in the ability and heart of the country’s poorest of the poor. A bank which goes out of its way to find needy people and help them stand up by letting them borrow small capitals.

Here is the story of the bank and that of Mohammad Yunus who come to realize that large problems are composite of a great number of simple problems and as such can be solved by simple people.

This is the lesson, the model, and the concurrent endeavor worthy of our real attention as people of our own nations and people for our world.