Free Banker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunus, Alan Jolis Page A

group fund, * provided that all the other members of the group approve of the amount and its usage and that the loan does not exceed half of the fund's total. In thousands of cases each year, loans made to our members from their group funds stave off seasonal malnutrition, pay for medical treatments, purchase school supplies, recapitalize businesses affected by natural disasters, and finance modest but dignified family burials. As of 1998, the total amount in all the group funds exceeded $100 million—more than the net worth of all but a handful of Bangladeshi companies.
    If an individual is unable or unwilling to pay back her loan, her group may become ineligible for larger loans in subsequent years until the repayment problem is brought under control. This creates a powerful incentive for borrowers to help each other solve problems and—even more important—to prevent problems. Groups can also request help from other groups in their "center," a federation of up to eight groups in a village that meets weekly with a bank worker at a predetermined place and time. A center chief, a group chairperson who is elected by all members to manage the center's affairs, helps solve any problems that a group is unable to handle on its own and works closely with the bank worker assigned to the center. The chief also plays an active role in screening loan requests. When a member makes a formal loan request during a meeting, the bank worker will normally ask the group chairperson and the center chief whether they support the loan proposal—both the amount and its purpose.
    From the very beginning, we decided that all business conducted during center meetings should be done out in the open. This reduced the danger of corruption, mismanagement, and misunderstandings and it kept the leaders and the bank workers directly accountable to the borrowers. Often borrowers would invite their children to join the meetings before school, so that these young ones could read them the notations in their passbooks and make sure that everything was being done correctly.
    I still find it exciting to travel out to Grameen villages and meet with centers. With each passing year the borrowers assume more responsibilities for the management of their own affairs. They come up with more innovative approaches to preventing and solving problems and find new ways to ensure that each member rises above the poverty line as quickly as possible. I always return from the villages more convinced that providing credit is a powerful means to create profound change in people's lives. It has been that way since I started visiting centers in 1977 and continues to this day. When I visit center meetings, not only in Bangladesh but all over the world, in countries as diverse as Malaysia, the Philippines, South Africa, and the United States, I realize how resilient and creative human beings can be when given the chance.
    One example of resilience is Mufia Khatoon, a Grameen borrower from Mirsharai District, north of Chittagong. Mufia joined Grameen in late 1979. Her life had been filled with sorrow until that point. In 1963, at the age of thirteen, she was married by her father, a kind-hearted farmer and fisherman, to a man named Jamiruddin of Dom Khali village in Mirsharai. During her husband's long absences at sea on a fishing boat, Mufia's mother-in-law verbally abused her and made sure she received little if any food even after doing all the cooking. Mufia lived a half-starved existence for years. When her husband returned home, he often beat Mufia. Occasionally her father, who lived a few miles away, tried to protect her, but his efforts made no lasting impact on how she was treated.
    Mufia became pregnant three times during these years, but one child died shortly after birth, and she was unable to carry the other two to term. Suffering from malnutrition and anemia, she finally gave birth to a son who survived, but it left her in a precarious state of health. Somehow she