UP | uncultured project

Choosing has always been the hardest part of this project. I’ve tried my best to share all the emotions I’ve had during this project like the joy of helping children in the Hill-Tracts, or the anguish and sense of powerlessness during Cyclone Sidr disaster relief, or the craziness involved in reaching some remote rural village. With this latest video, I’m sharing the toughest reality of this project: being forced to choose.

With this video, there is no wrong answer – only tough choices.

More after the jump.

Continue reading ‘Challenge Poverty (with Save the Children)’

I think since I am mentioning microfinance so much in my posts that I should expand on it a little for those who have not encountered it before.  Microfinance was pioneered by Dr. Muhammad Yunus, an economics professor from Bangladesh.  What Dr. Yunus did was to take traditional banking and transform some of the assumptions so that it helped the poor rather than excluded them.

There are a few problems with traditional banking that Dr. Yunus overcame in his quest to become “Banker to the Poor” and win the Nobel Prize doing it.  For instance, the typical loan process at a bank involves the giving of collateral. Banks do not wish their borrowers to fail repaying loans, so banks demand that borrowers present proof of repayment ability.  Usually, we see borrowers put up houses as collateral in America.  However, this process has the side effect of excluding the poor, since they have very little collateral to put up.  Also, banks are traditionally interested only in giving loans either with large principle amounts or large interest rates.  It is not profitable to earn small interest on a loan that is only $100 in size, given the operating costs that go with granting a loan.

But Dr. Yunus found ways to avoid these problems and make credit accessible to the poor.  Instead of collateral, he demanded something different: community backing.  If someone wants to get a loan, they must first create a credit group — a group of people that all agree to back up the loan.  These people are there for support during the loan process, and they are unable to receive a loan until the first has been repaid.  Thus, the incentives to repay come not from the giving of collateral, but from community ties.  Dr. Yunus also found ways to give small loans at small interest rates.  By standardizing the loan process and minimizing the screening costs, he was actually able to give extremely small loans at rates barely above the inflation rate, and still even turn a profit!

Granted, Dr. Yunus’ will be the first to tell you that his bank, the Grameen Bank, is not a profit-maximizing entity.  It is what he calls a “social business.”  If it makes a profit, that is all well and good; however, its measure of success comes not from the bottom line, but from the number of people that it helps escape poverty.  And by that measure, it has performed quite well.  Today, there are over seven million poor people in Bangladesh who have loans from Grameen Bank.  To date, it has loaned the equivalent of $6 billion (U.S.), and the repayment rate is an astonishing 98.6 percent.  Bangladesh is currently the only country in the world on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals, and that is in no small part due to the Grameen Bank and Dr. Yunus’ many other social businesses.

That brief explanation should be enough to understand anything that I address in future posts.  If you are interested in learning more about Dr. Yunus and his development of the microfinance model, read his autobiography Banker to the Poor. If you are interested in microfinance and social business as it stands today, I recommend his second book, Creating a World without Poverty, which looks more towards the future.

“Have you looked into micro-credit?” is the question I get asked most frequently. I actually got to meet Professor Yunus – a Bangladeshi and Nobel Peace Prize winner for his work in micro-credit. Micro-credits are basically small loans to those poor who wish to use that small loan for entrepreneurial purposes with the goal of pulling themselves out of poverty. Grameen Bank (founded by Professor Yunus) has had incredible results and amazing success stories. The reason I have somewhat shyed away from focusing on micro-credit in my work here in Bangladesh is because I believe there is an overemphasis on micro-credit back in the developed world. Micro-credit is part of the solution to ending poverty. It is not the solution to ending poverty in and of itself.

In terms of borrowing money, the poor in the developing world are very much like people in the developed world: what makes sense for us also make sense for them. It makes perfect sense, for example, to take a loan so you can attend a college. But does it make sense for you (or your parents) to take a loan so you can go to grade school? It also makes perfect sense to take a loan to buy a car. If you took a loan to buy a car, for example, you could start a delivery/transport business. But, would it make sense to constantly have to take subsequent loans because your car keeps breaking down because of the lack of proper roads? It’s also understandable that people sometimes need to to take loans to pay for medical expenses. But imagine if you could avoid getting sick in the first place simply by having a community with basic sanitation and the simplest of protection against diseases.

There is nothing wrong with micro-credit. It’s the developed world’s attitude toward micro-credit which is the problem. Aid and micro-credit isn’t an either/or proposition. They can work together. Many of the Millennium Development Goals advocated by Dr. Sachs and the United Nations are really a good basic support. Completing the MDGs will put people in a position of 1) being able to take full advantage of any micro-credit loans they ask for as well 2) helping people avoid unnecessary loans. Why take a loan for malaria treatments in a hospital when you can avoid getting infected by sleeping in an insecticide treated mosquito net? Imagine how far someone can go with a micro-credit loan if they have had the opportunity to gain even the basic of literacy skills to tap their full potential and ingenuity.

If there was a one sure fire solution to ending extreme global poverty – we’d already have this problem solved. Reaching a real solution means having to break our romantic belief that there is a holy grail to ending poverty.

After my latest video got featured on the YouTube homepage, there were so many people leaving comments about how fat I was, how I talked, or just leaving racial epithets, that I was resigned to the fact that my message had been lost among all the hateful messages. Then, something really amazing happened. A group of well-spoken, intelligent, and considerate group of commenters appeared. And, for the first time since being featured, a real conversation emerged.

Of course, as with any discussion, we didn’t all end up agreeing. But at least we addressed some important issues. Here is a summary of some of the topics that were touched upon:

Continue reading ‘A REAL Conversation about Poverty’

What does Bangladesh have to do with Super Tuesday? Just some friendly (non-partisan) words of advice:

I’d write more but, much of what I said I have already written up earlier when I was giving my take on the Davos Question.

I would like to say that everything is okay – but it really isn’t. Lately – for about the past few weeks – I’ve had this nervous feeling at the pit of my stomach. Am I doing the right thing? Is this project – at least the part of it that is online – making a difference?

I guess this feeling first started to creep in after I was able to meet Mikey Leung. Mikey is another fellow Canadian blogger trying to make a difference in Bangladesh. But, instead of coming here by himself, he joined with the Volunteer Service Organization. I actually had a chance to meet up with Mikey in person a few weeks ago and meet some of his fellow friends from the VSO.

How would be the best way to describe my feeling when I met these people? Have you ever run around – when you were really young – with a blanket tied to your neck pretending to be Superman? Now, imagine yourself meeting the real Superman. That’s kind of how I felt. There was no doubt in my mind who the real heroes were. In comparison to them, I felt like a fraud.

While I am walking around with one of my various Notre Dame t-shirts, these guys are wearing t-shirts they designed themselves promoting the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. That’s how hardcore they are. They also have none of the advantages I do. They don’t have family here or relatives here to lend support. They don’t have knowledge of the language before arriving. And, if they get sick (as many of them have), they just keep toughing it out and don’t stop working.

To put things into perspective, these are highly educated people who could have had successful high paying jobs anywhere in the world they wished. I met one of Mikey’s friends who happens to be educated from one of Britain’s best schools (and has a Masters degree), but is working here (like all other volunteers) for 9,000 taka a month. Let me put that into perspective: that’s about $130 dollars US a month. All of them work full time so that averages to about 50 cents an hour.

I wasn’t the only one at Notre Dame inspired by Dr. Jeffrey Sachs. On the Notre Dame facebook, I’ve found tons of people that have since gone off to Africa and other parts of the world to build schools, provide clean water, and make a difference. In fact, Notre Dame recently made a TV commercial featuring Tyler Stavinoha’s work with people in Haiti. You can watch that amazingly inspiring video on youtube at this link.

This isn’t the first time I’ve doubted myself or this project. I also know that this project is a lot about making a difference in just a few lives – and I have been able to do that thankfully. But, I can’t help but wonder how much more I could have done if I wasn’t trying to blog or make youtube videos while I’m here. There are tons of volunteers like Mikey – but very few of them blog. There is a very simple reason for that – when you are working to make a genuine difference, it’s actually very difficult to do much else (like blog or video blog).

As true as that is, that’s one of the reasons I want to be blogging and making youtube videos while I am on this project. Although there are already so many people trying to make the world a better place, there are even more that would love to be able to do so but can’t. Blogging and video blogging can be a way to share this experience. There are also those out there who might be the kind of person who would want to make a difference – but have not yet been inspired or informed on how to do so. If I can inspire others like Dr. Sachs inspired me – all the better.

In many ways, I guess meeting up with some real heroes has made me question my own project because their work is so unambiguous. You can’t question the humility, dedication, and purpose of someone who works for next to nothing (in a country he or she doesn’t know) all while doing it all in relative obscurity. They can also take pride in their work in a way I can’t. My project is a bit more ambiguous. I am trying to make a difference on the ground while trying to make a difference to others online. But, when it comes to the internet, it’s hard to tell whether you are making an impact or just talking to yourself in the dark.