Wednesday, October 18, 2006

ala Grameen Bank

I admire the Nobel Prize winner Professor Muhammad Yunus, who started Grameen Bank. An idea worth emulating, in a world of needs and wants. As always, our individual needs is always greater than the next person, however dire the next person's is.
What I am going to suggest is just a simple idea, it doesnt matter if it doesnt work, or if the success rate is 50%.
Lately I have been corresponding with an old friend Zamri Baba who has been involved with charity work, distributing zakat funds, doing the running around and attending meetings etc.
What if we set up a cooperative bank, whereby we pool our little bit extras into an account aptly named cooperative account. Then we lend some money to the poor (small amounts) to help set themselves up in business, or to ease their burden or set them up to be able to apply for jobs. The word lending is important here, for we expect them to pay it back when they can afford, so that we can lend the money again to the next person.
The loan amount could be small, say RM200 to buy a bicycle so that he or she can apply for a job away from home, or RM50 to buy rice, anchovies and eggs to start a nasi lemak business.
As for interest charge, I would prefer that we dont charge any, make it interest free. Free from riba' - free from guilt.
Make it our work of charity.
We could start by setting up an account with a bank, then set up a committee who is responsible in approving loans and so on so forth. Where do we get the funds? Public donations of course.
How do we solicit donations? Well, to start with we could set up website, even just a simple blog, publish our intentions, account number for donations and update where the loans go to..
Please post comment here, do you think this simple idea is possible?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

making extra money - karut punya cerita

nooryahaya said...

money to start with, i was thinking of donations, and a little bit that we set aside ourselves ,rm5. rm10 here and there, lamlama jadi banyak.
to make surre bororwer pay, we could send statement every month, make it easy for them to pay, ie supply account number so they can direct credit, evn rm2, rm 5 as they can afford it. just liek banks do, send reminder every month.
as in grameen bank , probably we concentrate on women borrower!