Entry 2: Responding to Yunus

Yunus’ groundbreaking concept of lending small loans to the poor has been extremely successful in the fight to eradicate poverty. Yunus’ passion for helping the poor has been nothing short of inspiring. His resilience stood out the most to me as he never stopped when faced with tremendous adversity. Because he never gave up in the process of establishing Grameen Bank, millions of families have been helped via microcredit. It amazes me that this one idea has been able to reach so many people across the globe from micro-credit projects influenced by what Muhammad Yunus began in Bangladesh.
I believe Yunus’ ideology is somewhat connected between both philanthropy and service. Microlending can be looked at as a philanthropic act because its purpose is to promote human welfare. However, when I look at the term philanthropy I also think of a gift of charity or a donation. Micro-credit is definitely not in the same category as charitable giving or donations because the funds dispersed are to be paid back, with interest. The idea behind micro-credit is summed up with the Chinese proverb: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” I can see microlending as separate from service because it helps people by providing them capital to be used for income generating businesses. Loan recipients must work extremely hard to get business moving, and, in the end, their failure or success rests on their shoulders. However, to begin a replication program I would say that it does require service from those working behind the scenes to get the program up and running.
I concur with Yunus that the predicament with charitable giving is that there are “billions of dollars for Third World development, but none for dozens of good micro-credit programs” (p. 163). While there is nothing wrong with aid being sent to Third World countries, more support needs to be shown for the organizations that will help to “end poverty for many and reduce its severity for others” (p. 171).