Page 183 - The Power to Change Anything

172 INFLUENCER

in these villages had traditional jobs. Most were self-employed.
If they weren’t supported by their own small plot of land, they
were the sole proprietor of a small craft or service business.
To finance their businesses, they needed capital. Usually it
was just a few pennies. Since none had even this small amount,
they were forced to turn to local loan sharks who charged over
1,000 percent interest. The interest rate was set at just the point
to guarantee that each entrepreneur would exhaust his or her
income repaying the loan and forever be locked in a cycle of
indebtedness. Yunus was dumbfounded when he discovered
that a woman who made beautiful handcrafted stools was held
in poverty because she lacked the five cents she would need to
buy supplies each day. Five cents!
Yunus ended his research with the conclusion that if he
could enable one vital behavior (villagers successfully secur-
ing and repaying a business loan), he could improve the finan-
cial fortunes of the 42 people he interviewed. In total, the 42
people he interviewed needed a paltry $27 to finance their
businesses.
Yunus next turned to local banks and suggested that they
offer loans to these 42 laborers at market rates. No takers. In
fact, bank executives laughed him out of their offices. As far as
they were concerned, no collateral, no loans! This harsh pol-
icy caused Dr. Yunus grave distress. In his own words:

Usually when my head touches the pillow, I fall asleep
within seconds, but that night I lay in bed ashamed that
I was part of a society which could not provide $27 to
forty-two able-bodied, hard-working, skilled persons to
make a living for themselves.

Thirty years have passed since that tortured day, and Dr.
Yunus now runs a multibillion-dollar banking and business
conglomerate, known as Grameen Bank, that has started a rev-
olution that has helped more than 100 million people like
Tanika out of poverty. The microcredit group that loaned