Date: Mon, 21 Oct 1996 14:25:09 -0400 (EDT) From: Tom Blancato <tblan-AT-telerama.lm.com> Subject: Action: Microcredit for 100 million! (fwd) Anyone have any thoughts on microcredit and rhizomes? BTW, Yunus' approach has been hightly effective in Bangledesh, where the Grameen bank (the "bank of the poor") uses this bottom-up strategy coupled with what I think is a very strong "nonviolence" ethos. This is the kind of thing that could be exemplary nonviolent thoughtaction projects for students in an "academy" as per recent discussions, coupled with extensive philosophical treatment. Microcredit can be thought of as a kind of material deconstruction of the "worldhood" of the World Bank (heh). I've developed preliminary projectsion for how to do a "thoughtaction" that would develop precisely this, and owing to the general ground of thoughtaction's being developed in certain ways, this "deconstruction" would not simply involved "materialism" ala Marx, but would open up into "thought", a "thought for The People" (shudder!) in narrow PAR (participatory action research) frameworks and broader nvta (nonviolent thoughtaction) frameworks. Tom B. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 18 Oct 1996 18:47:15 GMT From: Joel Rubinstein <jrubinstein-AT-igc.apc.org> To: Multiple recipients of list ACTIV-L <ACTIV-L-AT-MIZZOU1.MISSOURI.EDU> Subject: Action: Microcredit for 100 million! Act now to support Microcredit Summit Background Microcredit makes available very small loans to poor people so that they can start or expand tiny self-employment business ventures. It is one of the most effective means of reducing poverty worldwide. Microcredit is now aiding 8-10 million poor people in the developing countries, and tens of thousands more in industrialized countries. An international Microcredit Summit will be held in Washington, DC, February 2-4, 1996. The goal of the Summit is to reach 100 million of the world's poorest families with credit for self-employment and other business and financial services by the year 2005. The President's attendance will greatly enhance the prominence of the Summit and help ensure the participation of other world leaders. Strategy Our letters to the editor urging President Clinton and Senator Dole to commit now to attending the Summit will reinforce the same request being made through other channels. Our letters will also serve to inform readers and the media about the Summit and its goal. Starting a Revolution The stereotype of poor people is that they are lazy, lacking in skills, and terrible credit risks. While teaching economics at a Bangladesh university, Professor Muhammad Yunus began looking at the lives of the poor in the villages around his campus, and discovered a completely different reality. He found people who were highly skilled and hardworking. What kept them poor, he concluded, was a lack of capital, which made them dependent on moneylenders and middlemen and tied them to exorbitant interest rates. Yunus began an experiment: lending small amounts to the poor to allow them to start and expand their tiny businesses. Thanks to his persistence and clarity of vision, this experiment grew to become the Grameen Bank. Today Grameen Bank has two million owner- borrowers, almost all of whom are very poor women. Loans average $140, though first loans are much smaller, and the on-time repayment rate is more than 97%. Small though the loans may be, having access to credit sparks a profound change in the lives of the borrowers and their families, often allowing them to break out of the cycle of poverty. While Grameen was growing in Bangladesh, similar programs were beginning and expanding elsewhere in Asia, Latin America, Africa, and even in industrialized countries like the US and Canada. The question, as Dr. Yunus likes to say, is no longer whether poor people are "credit- worthy," but whether banks are "people-worthy." Microcredit Summit With solid evidence of microcredit's remarkable success, and with credit for self-employment reaching 8 to 10 million poor people on five continents, a group of non-governmental organizations has taken on a bold goal and conceived an event to move toward that goal: the first-ever Microcredit Summit, to be held in Washington, DC on February 2-4, 1997. The Summit will launch a campaign to ensure that 100 million of the world's poorest families, especially the women of those families, are receiving credit for self-employment and other financial and business services by 2005. Achieving this goal of 100 million families would mean that with five people per family, nearly half a billion people half of the world's absolute poor could benefit >from microcredit by 2005. Microcredit in the USA Of the 100 million poor people the Summit seeks to assist, an estimated four million will reside in industrialized countries, and many of those will be in the US. Although conditions in Chicago are very different from those in Bangladesh, microcredit is spreading rapidly in this country, with several hundred programs currently serving an estimated total of 40,000 to 50,000 clients. A modest investment in support of self- employment has the potential to create far more jobs than the well-publicized incentives used to lure large businesses. Over the next several years, it should be feasible to create as many as two million new very small enterprises, many employing one or two people besides the owner. These jobs could prove crucial under the new welfare law, which requires states to move poor people from welfare to work or lose federal grants. U.S. Leadership Crucial The success of any international summit meeting is highly dependent on the level of US participation. When President Bush announced that he would attend the 1990 World Summit for Children, the news encouraged other world leaders to attend. That helped make the children's summit the largest gathering of heads of state and government ever held up to that time. The chances for a successful Microcredit Summit would increase greatly if the next President of the United States declared his intention now to attend personally and to have a high-level U.S. delegation participating. Members of the House and Senate can also play a key role in legislative follow-up to the Summit by joining the Microcredit Summit Council of Parliamentarians. ACTION: Write a letter to the editor. 1. Refer to a recent article in the paper about the US or global economies, welfare reform, or the elections. 2. Explain the difference that access to credit is making in the lives of many poor people. 3. Tell readers about the Microcredit Summit and its goal of reaching 100 million families with credit for self- employment by the year 2005. 4. Urge Senator Dole and President Clinton to commit now to attending the Summit, if elected. 5. Urge your members of Congress to join the Council of Parliamentarians of the Microcredit Summit, or, if they have already joined, acknowledge them in your letter. U.S. senators on the Council of Parliamentarians: Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) Patty Murray (D-WA) U.S. representatives on the Council of Parliamentarians: Robert Andrews (D-NJ) Jerry Lewis (R-CA) Howard Berman (D-CA) Robert Matsui (D-CA) Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) Marty Meehan (D-MA) Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) Constance Morella (R-MD) George Brown (D-CA) Bill Orton (D-UT) Bob Filner (D-SD) Floyd Spence (R-SC) Elizabeth Furse (D-OR) John Spratt (D-SC) Benjamin Gilman (R-NY) Charles Taylor (R-NC) Amo Houghton (R-NY) Bruce Vento (D-MN) Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) =======================================================================Microcredit Summit, February 2-4, 1997 http://igc.apc.org/results/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Working to ensure that 100 million of the world's poorest families, especially the women, are receiving credit for self-employment by 2005. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ RESULTS Educational Fund microcredit-AT-igc.apc.org 236 Massachusetts Ave NE #300 phone: (202) 543-9340 Washington DC 20002 fax: (202) 546-3228 =======================================================================
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