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role.muhammed-yunus.title

Muhammed Yunus

Grameen Bank

“Making money is a happiness. And that's a great incentive. Making other people happy is a super-happiness.” – Muhammed Yunus Muhammed Yunus is a powerful role model for the sense of purpose and mission. He is the founder of Grameen Bank which pioneered the concept of microcredit for supporting entrepreneurs in developing countries. Yunus’ vision emerged when he discovered that very small loans could make a huge difference for people who had scarce economic resources. In his native country of Bangladesh, for instance, Yanus observed that village women who made bamboo furniture struggled to keep their small businesses going and were often taken advantage of when they tried to borrow money. Traditional banks did not want to make loans to poor people due to what they perceived as the high risk of default. Yunus, however, was convinced that, given the chance, the women would be more than willing to repay the money and a reasonable amount of interest. Yunus lent $27 of his own money to 42 women in the village made a small but significant profit on every loan. This validated his vision and reinforced his belief that microcredit was a viable business model that could positively transform the lives of people living in poverty. On 1 October 1983, Yunus launched a full-fledged bank for poor Bangladeshis named Grameen Bank (“Village Bank”). By July 2007 Grameen had issued $6.38 billion to 7.4 million borrowers. In 2006, Yunnus and Grameen Bank received the Nobel Peace Prize for these efforts, the success of which has inspired similar programs throughout the world.

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