Day 3: Grameen Center Day Trip (August 3)

On this day I attended a day trip to a Grameen Center at a nearby village on the outskirts of Dhaka.  The trip took about two hours with some amazing scenic views of the country side.  After being briefed on procedures and formalities, my group was given the privilege of helping conduct the days meeting.  Every meeting is started with a ritualistic greeting. There is a four point salutation method to initiate a meeting, where the group chief asks for permission to begin the meeting, the center leader approves, a salutation is made and permission granted to sit down and begin. Thereafter, each group is summoned to deposit the weeks installment payment, new applications are considered, and other banking and business affairs conducted.  I aided in collecting payments and reviewed new loan proposals.

After loan payments were collected and recorded, my team was given the opportunity to group interview the bank members.  Most questions were regarding the economic and social conditions of the members.  All member claimed to have been under extreme poverty before receiving micro-loans from Grameen, which were used to start businesses.  Almost all the loan recipients we observed were women.  We also visited several borrowers homes, all of which were very simple but hospitable. After the interview session, we proceeded to a Branch office for observation.  Each branch is responsible for seven to ten centers like the one in the picture above.