Microcredit is a loan financed by a small institution/organization/ or individual, generally with the goal of helping poor families/individuals pay for the start-up costs of a business that will hopefully bring said parties of out poverty. The most notable point of the microcredit loan is that it does not involve a legally binding contract or collateral to back the loan. They also tend to have more flexible payback structures, and since many of the loans come from non-profit ventures, defaulting on the loan simply means the organization doesn't get it's money back, not that the person getting the loan has to declare bankruptcy and pay a bunch of fines. Essentially, the person giving out the loan has no interest in making a profit, only in keeping the program going. In the case of the Grameen foundation, the person requesting a loan also has to join a group of borrowers.
This group requirement makes Grameen Decision number 16, "We shall take part in all social activities collectively" exceptionally easy to do, because there is already a social network in the community set up by the foundation, and nature of their loan contract. I also personally like decision 6, 7, 8, and 12, and while I find 11, "We shall not take any dowry at our sons' weddings, neither shall we give any dowry at our daughters wedding. We shall keep our centre free from the curse of dowry. We shall not practice child marriage," to be a positive concept I would hesitate to enforce it, because it tends to be a cultural practice, and while I do not approve of dowry's personally, I do believe that they can be an important part of an areas economic structure, and would require conscious and involved effort to get rid of, instead of just requesting that it not be practiced. Child marriage however, I do think should be gotten rid of. So if I were to star a branch of the Grameen foundation in bellingham, I would ask that my borrowers stick to 6,7,8,12 and 16, and would also try and find ways to discourage dowries without forcing a family to give up a large portion of their expected income, and would try to enforce that they don't practice child labor.
In order to start said branch, first obviously, I would have to talk to the Lighthouse Mission staff (which I actually did today, for a different class project, they're quite nice) about supporting a local branch of the foundation, and getting a little office space from them to start running it out of. Hopefully they would allow me to start my campaign by letting me use their donor list to get some funding prospects started, and then from there I would try to get other local business to host a 'Grameen Night' where they donate a portion of their funds to the foundation, which would hopefully get a larger portion of the community interested int the foundation, and my particular cause with minimal investment in advertising.
Since I do actually plan on going into the non-profit sector I do have a particular goal in aiding 'fourth quadrant.' That is to say I would prefer to have the loans go to people who are starting sustainable businesses, not only in terms of the environment, but also sustainable in terms of providing work and useful education for their children. Because while it can be simple to help one person in need start making money, it only helps that one person, funding programs and initiatives that educate and provide opportunities for younger generations helps ensure that in the future, programs like the Grameen foundation won't have (at least as much) of a reason to exist.
Along with funding their particular course of action, I would also like to be able to help these entrepreneurs make sure that their business is as sustainable as possible, and hopefully get a list of guidelines for sustainability generated by Western students, staff, and Bellingham locals that would be separated by country, and then into regions, to give the people an idea as to how they could in the future, expand their operation to include more people (if possible).
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