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is there anything that's happened in the
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microcredit movement or in your own life
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as it as it relates to this to this work
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that has changed the way you view
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microcredit is there something that's
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said oh have you ever said to yourself
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oh I should have done this instead of
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this or I should be doing this instead
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of this have any of your initial
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assumptions changed over the years the
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assum basic assumptions remain the same
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we have expanded it lots of other things
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came we thought let's try this one and
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we tried it and it worked we felt happy
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about it um if you just look at the if I
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reflect what I have done if I have to do
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anything differently probably one area
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probably I would have done differently
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uh when we began in
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1982 uh uh there's a tremendous amount
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of enthusiasm among the donors to give
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us money because we had a small project
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they wanted to help us and we are very
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reluctant to take money because we had
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plenty of money at that time is very
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small project we didn't need any money
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we had no idea about taking money but
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they kept on pressuring pressuring Us in
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the central bank with which we were
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working and finally Central Bank yeld it
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because they thought why not if they
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want to give money let's take some money
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as a loan not even a grant from epad
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International fund for agricultureal
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development so in 1982 we took the
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external money before that we never had
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any external money and the donors other
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donors came in they wanted to give us
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more money so we thought why not once we
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have taken one we can take two we can
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take three we have started taking it and
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lots of money keept coming and we kept
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on expanding then one complaint kept
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coming saying that well gamine Bank
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works because it gets a lot of money and
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that's what donors keeping it a Flo vot
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I said no that's not true that's not
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what we we didn't need the money they
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gave the money so we took it so in 95 we
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decided not to take any money at all CU
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we thought uh we can do it ourselves so
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from 95 on we never took any external
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money entirely it's local money local
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thing so if I have to go back I would
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have changed that 82 decision never
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taken any never take any money so that
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that confusion was not created for a
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long time people said well donor has to
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be there
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otherwise they cannot survive these are
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donor kind of uh supported program which
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stays alive I said that's a very wrong
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idea because that's not how we wanted to
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work and that's how we never worked
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right so that's one change I thought I
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should have done I have one last
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question uh how do you define
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success just like any other case that uh
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whatever your objective was if you came
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to that your success it depends on what
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your objective was how do you relate it
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that yes we made it uh in our case uh we
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wanted to bring credit to the poor
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people and saving services to the poor
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people uh people said it never work we
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hope that it will work and it did and
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then say Well it may work in one Village
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it don't work for two villages we did
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they said maybe 10 Villages it don't
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work if you grow big it will collapse we
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are stretching your luck too much uh we
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did so that is a success that even
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Beyond what we imagine we never thought
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that we can continue uh with this uh
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such a repayment record years and years
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because uh organizations get uh weakened
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or as you grow big your management
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becomes a problem and this was a big
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worry for us uh as we grow uh can the
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quality of administration quality of
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management continue to grow with it or
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deteriorate because you not running it
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yourself anymore you are depending on
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hundreds and hundreds and thousands of
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young people who just came to know about
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it marginally knows about it we leave
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everything in their hands and the
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decisions but it worked and then say it
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may work in Bangladesh it don't work
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outside so now as I said it's worked all
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over the country all over the world in
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many countries they said well our
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country is not like Bangladesh we don't
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have such a huge density of population
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and not so much po poverty concentrated
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in our population so in our country it
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don't work we said well you debate about
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your country and Bangladesh give the
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task to us we go and do it for you and
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uh they accepted that many countries did
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that so we started doing that we did it
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in Turkey we did it in Kosovo we do it
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in Costa Rica guala in China India many
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places to demonstrate those kind of
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thing and we started one in New York
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City uh last year it's called Grammy in
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America we do the same kind of work that
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we do in The Villages of Bangladesh and
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a beautiful result we have more than 600
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borrowers in New York City all women
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five member group weekly repayment
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savings $2 each week uh we have given um
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loans to all of them and average loan is
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$2200 repayment rate is
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99.3% no collateral nothing so it works
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uh I would say the strength of the idea
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that it's not country specific or uh
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people of particular location specific
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it's a global it's it's a human thing
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it's not uh uh something that works with
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one particular trait of character of a
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particular
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community
