Credit where credit's due - The Grameen Bank in Bangladesh Case Study Teachers Notes Student Activities How easy or difficult is it to borrow money from Australian commercial banks to start a business? (find out about bank policy and practice regarding collateral, interest rates, repayments, loan defaults) What alternatives are there in Australia to commercial bank loans? What are the advantages and disadvantages of these? Interview a local person who runs a small business. What kind of business is it? How did they get started? Did they borrow money? From whom? How easy was this? How long did it take to start making a profit? How easy/difficult is it for a woman to get a bank loan in Australia? Interview older women in your family / neighbourhood about bank lending to women in the past. From the case study, what do you learn about poverty in Bangladesh? Find out more about Bangladesh, its people, way of life and reasons for poverty there. Write the dialogue for a scene in which a poor Bangladeshi goes to a commercial banker to borrow money and is rejected, then goes to a Grameen banker and is accepted. When the percentage of women borrowers at Grameen Bank was becoming greater than the percentage of male borrowers, Professor Yunus received a letter from the Bangladesh Central Bank. It said: "Dear Sir, Please explain why over one million of your borrowers are women." What response do you think Professor Yunus could give? Write a newspaper article on one of the women whose success story appears in the Case Study. What similarities do you think there are between the poor in Bangladesh and the poor in the other countries, including the USA where Grameen style banks have been established? Imagine you are starting a bank for the poor in Australia: what will you call your bank? Invent a slogan and logo for the bank. Write an advertisement (print or TV) for the bank. What other kinds of assistance do you think would help poor people, especially women, in Bangladesh? Find out what other programs the Australian Goverment's overseas aid program and Australian non-government organisations have in Bangladesh.   Top © Commonwealth of Australia