COMMENTATOR (COMM.): Previously on Life...
LESTER THUROW: There's some countries they just get dismissed - you know, if you don't have educated people, you don't have infrastructure, you don't have social organisation, nobody pays any attention to you.
JUAN SOMAVIA: You know, changes in society happen because people organise themselves to make them happen.
EVELINE HERFKENS: Even hard-nosed economists do recognise that elasticity of growth increases once you invest in the poor.
COMM: This is the story of Jahanara, Bilkis, Nargis, Minara, Mageda, and Shonda and the difference small loans make to their lives and their families.
JAHANARA (TRANSLATION): Before the loan we were in trouble, now we are making progress.
BILKIS (TRANSLATION): We don't need anyone for money - we are doing well with the loan.
NARGIS (TRANSLATION): My husband comes in the afternoon and gives me twenty-five taka and in the evening he gives me money for the family.
MINARA (TRANSLATION): Everyone dreams about doing lots of things. Lots of things to help their children.
MAGEDA (TRANSLATION): People are much more conscious now and so they're healthier.
SHONDA (TRANSLATION): When there is money in the hand they feel good, man and woman they feel happiness inside them. If there is no money, there is no pleasure.
COMM: Jahanara and her neighbours live in Shilmundi in South Eastern Bangladesh, very nearly the poorest and certainly the most densely populated country on earth. Living in a vast delta the villagers of Shilmundi suffer periodic floods and cyclones. They live always on the edge of poverty but sometimes that's hard to see. One idea now gives them hope, health and a degree of happiness - but does 'micro-credit', small loans for millions of rural poor, really work?
SHONDA (TRANSLATION): A woman came from Dhaka; and then I contacted her, and then she said, 'We'll start a co-operative organisation. If you help me it'll work.' I contacted her again and we set up with twenty-five women from this village. We called in the women from the Moslem houses as well and then with these twenty-five women we set up a BRAC micro-credit scheme, and gradually people came and took loans and the women's lives got better.
COMM: People living in villages need access to money like anybody else, but banks in Bangladesh don't lend to the vast numbers of rural poor - BRAC, however, does. The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, was set-up to fight the appalling poverty of the early seventies; it's now the largest lender of micro-credit loans in the world funded in part by Western aid agencies; three million village poor, virtually all women, take out up to three hundred dollars a year. Micro-credit administration happens locally at weekly village meetings.
JAHANARA (TRANSLATION): First of all we ring the bell; when they hear this bell ringing they all come to this meeting place. Thirty-five people usually come. If anyone is missing because of any problem then we have to send someone to find out what's happening to that person and then bring them here. Then we divide into groups and we sit in groups of five women. And then the sister collects the money from each group. And then after collecting the money we read the eighteen promises.
MINARA (CHANTS) (TRANSLATION ): We will raise our sons and daughters equally.
OTHER WOMEN CHANT (TRANSLATION): We will raise our sons and daughters equally.
COMM: This week Minara proposes that Mageda should be able to borrow ten thousand taka - about two hundred dollars.
COMM: Jahanara, as president of the village organisation, and the cashier Mafia both sign, so does Bilkis - a seconder, and Mageda herself. All her peers are responsible for the loan's repayment. Two days later, Mageda sets off to collect her loan. She'll use it to grow green vegetables to sell in local shops. The BRAC office is about two kilometres away. Three offices, three officials and checks on her savings book mean the loan of just two hundred dollars can be paid over. But Mageda isn't sure she has received all her money - she now faces one year of weekly repayments - she wants it checked again. Failure to repay could result in being ostracised by the village group. It apparently rarely happens, BRAC claims that 98% of loan money is repaid.
WOMEN PLEDGE: We will abide by the decisions of the village organisation!
COMM: There are problems though if you're borrowing from other organisations and want to join BRAC.
UDDONDI WOMAN (TRANSLATION): I have no problems - ask people about me: I never argue or fight with anyone; I don't mess around over money.
MAFIA (TRANSLATION): It's not that it's because you have taken your name out of the village register - I told you this before!
COMM: Out of earshot the response is less polite.
MAFIA (TRANSLATION): I'm telling you we can't trust her!
NEIGHBOUR (TRANSLATION): No, no, no! She's no good; she's no good! Leave it for now - we'll sort it out next week.
COMM: The Shilmundi village organisation refused to let the woman who had apparently defaulted join.
SHONDA (TRANSLATION): I am watching, and through BRAC people are improving their position with their loans. Whether people agree or not, they are improving their lives. I have improved myself through BRAC - I believe it.
COMM: The thirty-five women of the village organisation can take out loans every year. The idea is to develop work that'll generate income. People farm fish, keep cows for milk production, raise poultry or buy rickshaws - and they pay 15% interest on the loans. These women's enterprises are intended to bring about changes in a male-dominated rural society.
SHONDA (TRANSLATION): I do silk work. I get eggs from the office; I mature the eggs and supply them from place to place. I keep some of them. I do all the work I can. The farming of silkworms happens three times a year. Then I return the silkworms to the office, then BRAC pays me a percentage of the money and I'm doing all right and making enough money.
MINARA (TRANSLATION): I've done so many things with the loan, and I'm still doing them - I've really benefited from them: I had no house, now we've built a house; we had no rickshaw, we used to rent one but it was so difficult, now we own a rickshaw and we don't have problems. We are paying and we are getting money. We're repaying the BRAC loans.
COMM: Minara's husband cycles from dawn to dusk. He works at the same stand as Nargis's husband. And Bilkis too owns rickshaws.
BILKIS (TRANSLATION): Before we had problems but now we don't have problems - if we've got money at home from the rented rickshaw, if we are ill, we spend this money for treatment and we don't have any problem repaying BRAC's loans. We don't need to go to anybody else for money. We're OK with what we've got.
SHONDA (TRANSLATION): I see people's children around and see their happiness and I think about myself.
COMM: Shonda has no children. Her husband left her some time ago to become a Hindu holy man.
SHONDA (TRANSLATION): Sometimes I think about God when I am happy. With the disciples I read the holy book. We talk to each other, we talk about religion and I just forget about my problems. If I can build a temple, I'll be very happy. This is my dream.
NARGIS (TRANSLATION): If you get a cold, or cough badly then we go Shonda and she gives us medicine, we get well and we don't need to go hospital.
COMM: Shonda is also one of over thirty-two thousand volunteers trained by BRAC to recognise ten common illnesses. She acts as a community nurse come pharmacist. Shonda keeps 30% of the cost of the medicine she dispenses.
SHONDA (TRANSLATION): The regulations of selling medicines were taught by BRAC and we obey these regulations. When people are anaemic we sell a phial of medicine and I get ten taka. And I buy it for fifteen taka, sell it for twenty-five and make ten taka profit.
COMM: Health awareness amongst others in the village is a little more complicated.
HEALTH WORKER (TRANSLATION): This is also bad. You will have a stillborn baby with this. So you should take this card to Matlab as soon as possible.
COMM: Shumitra is more than eight months pregnant. She has high blood pressure and swollen ankles. Despite the community health worker's imploring, she won't go to hospital. Her husband refuses permission.
HEALTH WORKER (TRANSLATION): If her blood pressure goes any higher it's going to be a big problem. Anything can happen. Time is very short.
COMM: At three the next morning Shumitra gave birth - not part the village organisation she hadn't felt strong enough to go against her husband to protect her own health. She began the traditional seven-day seclusion. Bilkis, who is in the village organisation, is worried about her youngest son, Kawser, who cries a lot and is lethargic. Bilkis decides to go to hospital and dresses up specially. She doesn't ask her husband for permission but she does have to find him and his rickshaw to get there. The hospital is about three kilometres away. Originally for cholera, ICDDR,B hospital now specialises in diarrhoea, lung diseases and child health. The introduction of Micro-credit schemes has seen a 25% improvement in infant mortality, amongst those mothers like Bilkis, who have taken out loans. Bilkis is also worried about Ajhar, who's seven - she isn't sure if it's all right to bring in older children. But the ICDDR.B is a well-funded non-governmental research organisation and health care is free. Kawser has tonsilitis. And is given a course of penicillin. But the dosage is confusing.
DOCTOR (TRANSLATION): This is a whole phial, it will last for three days, and let him have it all, and each these phials will last for three days. This phials can be given thirteen times.
BILKIS (TRANSLATION): Both of these together?
DOCTOR (TRANSLATION): This is a different medicine - it's going to last for three days. And the four phials are for ten days - ten days - ten days - ten days.
COMM: Relieved to get medicine, but not too sure she understands - Bilkis can't read the dosage instructions. Kawser recovers two days later. If he doesn't receive the proper dose he risks becoming immune to penicillin.
COMM: The women of Shilmundi in Bangladesh have taken on more than just loans.
MAGEDA (TRANSLATION): These days, people are very clean - latrines weren't good before, they used to use pond water in all the toilets and to wash things, the waste used to get washed down to the river. People drank this river water and fell ill. Now they have tube wells, they know how to keep clean and they boil the water, and store the water in jugs.
COMM: BRAC's micro-credit schemes include preventive health care. New sanitary latrines and clean water wells are saving lives.
JAHANARA (TRANSLATION): It's been eight years since we first took a loan. We built a house and a latrine and a tube well. We did all this work from this loan money.
COMM: Jahanara's husband, Samad usually works with his wife.
SAMAD (TRANSLATION): We have to work together. If we don't work together how's it going to work? Yesterday we cut the paddy together and brought it home together and put it here together.
COMM: Jahanara thinks women should be valued and never misses the chance to say so.
JAHANARA (TRANSLATION): Yeah the women - that's it! Don't you say any more - who does all the work these days?
MAN (TRANSLATION): You can't do anything without men
JAHANARA (TRANSLATION): You can't live without women!
MAN (TRANSLATION): Without women the world can go on,
JAHANARA (TRANSLATION): Hmm, hmm,
MAN (TRANSLATION): But without men, it can't!
JAHANARA (TRANSLATION: Never!
SAMAD: Women work hard. These days they work in the fields. They always try to earn money. Try to earn for the family. Men just like to spend money.
COMM: After eight years of micro-credit in Shilmundi, enlightened attitudes have reduced family sizes - there are few inhibitions about birth control.
NARGIS (TRANSLATION): No, no, no! No more children now, maybe in ten years time. If I want a son it depends on god, if the next one is a daughter, it doesn't matter - my husband doesn't mind.
COMM: Attitudes about the need for girls to finish school are changing too.
MAFIA (TRANSLATION): I want my daughter to be educated. If she's lucky she can finish her final school exams. Time will tell who's going to marry a poor man's daughter. Even rich people find it difficult to arrange their daughter's marriage.
COMM: A fish head always used to reserved for the husband as head of the household. Neither is now true.
MINARA (TRANSLATION): Sometimes I eat the head, sometimes my husband and sometimes the children, whatever I give him he eats.
COMM: Although illegal in Bangladesh, paying dowry - literally paying a husband to take the bride - still happens. But Jahanara, when it came to her daughter Nargis's wedding, kept within the law.
JAHANARA (TRANSLATION): No, I don't give a dowry. I didn't give anything! We had wedding party that cost five thousand taka. I paid some money and my husband paid some.
COMM: But some things don't change. Bilkis is guarded about her relationship with her husband.
BILKIS (TRANSLATION): I have no power. I have no power, I just listen. Women work hard - what do they do? They just do one job and come home with a very hot head. We work every where around the house but we can't get angry.
COMM: In villages of thin tin huts, neighbours hear everything - including beatings.
BILKIS'S HUSBAND (TRANSLATION): I can't hold my anger for a whole day. Sometimes she swears at the children, I don't like it. Both of us get angry. Yeah, when I get angry I hit her with bowls. I know it's not fair but I do it out of anger, out of anger.
WOMEN CHANT (TRANSLATION): We will fight against polygamy and domestic violence.
MAGEDA (TRANSLATION): Sometimes it happens, domestic violence, we can go to court. By knowing this, it is good for us. Before we knew this, but we could not speak about it. We kept it inside. We could not talk about it. We come here every week, sit with ten to twenty people. We talk about so many things, and we learn from this.
COMM: The micro-credit scheme of Shilmundi hasn't worked for everybody.
MAYA (TRANSLATION): I had to think about the repayments. If I had no money then I had to borrow from somebody else to make the repayments. And after that I thought I shouldn't take it any more loans.
COMM: For some people repayment is too much. For others, understanding the loan concept itself is difficult.
DIPLALI'S MOTHER (TRANSLATION): Suppose I got the loan but was unable to carry on the repayments, it's not going to be good if I can't make the repayments. I was confused - shall I get the loan or shall I feed my children. How was I going to continue with the loan. That's why I didn't want to continue with it.
COMM: Depali's mother defaulted on her loan of just twenty-five dollars and now has to beg.
DIPLALI (TRANSLATION): If I was educated I could have found a way. Now who is going to look after my mother and pay for education? I want to do some work now and I want to improve my family.
NASSEREEN HAQ (Women's health activist): It is often said that micro-credit is not able to reach the poorest of the poor. And I think we have to recognise that. Those who require money to eat that very day, for survival are perhaps not the best entrepreneurs - they need jobs and micro-credit is not a substitute for jobs and in this country people need jobs.
PROF. MOHAMMED YUNUS (Originator of 'Micro-credit'): Poverty is not created by poor people - so it's not their problem. Poverty is created by institutions that we build, policies that we pursue; concepts that we create.
MUSHTAQUE CHOWDHURY (BRAC Director of Research): Not everyone's aware of the limitations of micro-credit - So I think the people that are talking about micro-credit should also talk about the limits of micro-credit. Because micro-credit cannot do everything, so there have to be other things built into the problem - into poverty alleviation programme of which micro-credit will be an important part.
SHONDA (TRANSLATION): Boys and girls are doing well. They're standing on their own two feet. They are running their own business and doing a good job and quite conscious of society. If we had had these lessons before, about fifteen years ago, we could have led our lives in very modern way. If our parents could have sent us to school we could have improved.
END