Grameen Intership, summer 2006

The air was hot and humid. It was just July 9th, 9:30am and I already felt like I were baking in a suana. I searched the crowd of unfamiliar faces at the lobby of the 20 storey Grameen Building. The old friend from the U.S finally showed up. We took the elevator straight to the 8th floor.

Orientation

After a brisk introduction to the interns of the day at a large "intern-seasoned" table, we were ushered into a media room to watch a few videos to get a crash course of Grameen. We were assigned a cordinator and were asked to pencil down a few personal objectives of our internship. (note to future interns: keep this list short and sweet. Just say you are there to learn about Grameen methodology. Boy, did I get into trouble on the first day for complex objectives!)

At the "table" I met Remi Meunier, Philippine Janssens and Kivanc Camber. The old friend aka as Hamidur Rashid and I decided to dive into an overnight field trip out of Dhaka that very day, since there were going to be strikes the next day and we really didn't want to get stuck in Dhaka. We were really impressed by how effecient the cordinators and supervisors were in arranging a trip for us in 2 hours.

Since Hamid was living outside Dhaka and wasn't quite prepared to go on a trip that very day, we had to go shopping for sandals, t-shirts and Bangladeshi pajamas to serve as pants in less than an hour! We rushed back to the office and were chaperoned by our cordinator to a village called Manikgonj, an hours and a half away from Dhaka.

When in doubt, hand it over to Dr. Yunus

After miserable attempts of the Govt. to manage the estate of 800 ponds by cultivating fish, they turned it over to Dr. Yunus. Joysagor is located in North Bengal. It is the headquaters of one of Grameen's thriving sister for-profit organizations called the Fisheries and Livestock Project.


This peaceful estate is one of the many examples of creative "tweaking" of the Grameen micro-credit model to incorporate borrowing of money to cultivate seafood and paying back in fish if needed.



Grameen also does an excellent job of connecting the borrowers to customers. E.g. they collect 2000 liters of milk everyday from the livestock of the borrowers. Its is mainly sold to Milk Vita which is one of the leading ice cream producers of the country.

Grameen Shakti (Solar Energy)

They have doubled their installations from 1500 to 3000 a month! Retail stores and tailor shops as these can stay opne longer for business. This has doubled the revenues of the entrepreneurs and helped them become more competitive in their industry.

The Entrepreneurial Spirit

This Grameen borrower had loans from ASA, BRAC and Grameen. She was comfortable juggling all three loans and optimized the resources by delegating businesses to extended family members. Giving loans to the women inevitably raised her status in her family and drastically improved her self esteem. I was amazed at the social revolution that has changed the cultural landscape of the people in the villages.

Grameen Shikkha (Education program)

In order to reduce the drop out rate of students from public schools, Grameen uses the meeting centers as preschools for children ages 3 to 5. The children were happy and nutured in this positive learning environment and thus taught to be accustomed to the discipline ot attending school.

Our favorite moments

We ate the best mangoes at the banks of the Ganges in North Bengal, gazed at the milky way and listened to the folk songs of the fishermen in the late hours of the night.
Some of us had a royal treat of being whisked away by the gracious elephants of the village. This is in Sylhet where we had traveled as private guests of the Finance Minister. He treated us to food that were from his gardens and ponds. He had Grameen Solar panels on his bungalows.




Amee was trained in Bharathnatam since she was 6 years old. We had a private performance at my sister in law's, Sadaf Siddiqi.




The boys enjoying the performance "Nawabi" style.

Present day challenges of Grameen borrowers

Grameen has successfully adopted changes to meet the customized needs of their borrowers over the year, like evolving into the Grameen II business model of flex-loan payments.

Being a product of an Entrpreneurship business school, I constantly noticed the lack of diversity in picking the "right" opportunities among the borrowers. Yes, I agree, they are doing much better that they were before and have had an improvement in their quality of life. They even adopt multiple business strategies like farming for 3 months, rickhaws for 7 months and their sewing business for 2 months. Don't quote me on the exact line up of businesses.

However, 70% of the borrowers seem to have the same selection of cyclical businesses. Thats what boggled my mind. Why did the whole town trade cows? And why did they pick the same cyclical businesses? We tried to take some guys out to lunch to show our gratitude for their warmth and hospitality, but the whole village didn't have a single restaurant!

This is the same "disconnect" we observed with all the NGOs operating in Bangladesh. People were not aligning their "unique" skills, passions and a community need which would allow them to pick the "right" opportunity and have less competition if any at all and serve the community better. That way they would get a higher return for the same investment and effort.

In the mind of the borrowers

I had asked them why they continued to borrow in spite of having a descent stash of savings. They were clearly in a position to fund their own ventures. I asked if they felt trapped, if they wanted to get out, if they got tired of paying back loans. They smiled and asked,"what do you do when you start a business? Borrow money, right? And what do you do when you want to expand or start a bigger business? Borrow more money, right? Well, thats the choice we are making. We are choosing to start bigger and bigger businesses. Why would we feel trapped? Esp. with the flex- program they have now. Of course, our team members help out and hold each one of us accountable if we can't pay our installments for the week. But, we are always work something out with the bank.

Connecting with people

Hira and Ridoi(Diamonds and Hearts)
We felt the hospitality of the Bangladeshi people everywhere we went. In Madappur, an entourage ot 8 young chaps entertained us for 3 hours on a spectacular boat ride in full moon light.

Sadaf & Kamel



Their pad was one of our hangout joints. Sadaf's always has great food, live music, and even chinese tea ceremonies.




Philippine and the village children

Philippine was always surrounded by children. She won their hearts with pictures and candy!



Hub nubbing with the Rich and Famous


Hamid was making connections round the clock, from being the Finance Minister's private guest for a weekend to spending quality time with the High Commissioner's Chinese dog.

Oh! Did we eat!

At local tea shops, at Aaref's, at the Fisheries, in Kaptai and at my 2 mom's were among a few places were the food was to die for!

Building long term relationships

Field Trip

The branch manager was amazingly warm, caring and well read. This was just the beginning of Grameen hospitality. My greatest take away for the summer was that, business is all about building relationships, its about caring for people. Its never about the money or a transaction. We interns observed time and time again that the borrowers didn't care about the declining 20% interest rates, they never bothered to compare rates or benifits with other NGOs operating in the community like ASA or BRAC. They were proud to be Grameen borrowers, preferred to do business on Grameen loans even if they had savings. They claimed that they were more productive by being on a short Grameen leash of making weekly payments. At the end of the day, they all loved being part of a community, the Grameen community. Its a torch of hope that they passed down from generation to generation.

The "intern-seasoned" table

At the "Intern-Seasoned" table, I met the following people:
Disclaimer: The following are my perceptions, so don't sue me!

Remi Meunier
He is a MBA student at HEC, one of the top business schools in Paris. I loved the structure of their program. Its 4 years, with global internships every 6 months, so that by the time they graduate, they have already built a network of contacts who have worked with them personally and they have traveled around the world learning new cultures and gathering invaluable experience that makes them an instant asset to any company. Their new global contact lists also enables them to join other entrepreneurs, young or experienced in innovations anywhere in the world. It also arms them to adapt to cultural differences since they have already lived through a few while in school.

Remi is a quiet, easy-going, gentle lad of 21 years of age, who has grandparents in Delhi, parents in France and siblings working in South Africa and Afghanistan. He is well traveled and has a knack for languages that would be the envy of any linguist. He is extremely passionate about classical music, can connect with people of any culture with a smile, can do financial analysis in his sleep and whenever I asked him to try something new, he always replied, "why not?"

He is presently in South Korea as an exchange student and studying Tae Kwando. He is completely immersed in the Korean culture, has become fluent in the language and is traveling in South Korea whenever he can. He is also exploring possibilities for ventures there.

You can check out his personal blog at: http://remiaupaysdumatincalme.blogspot.com

Philippine Janssens

Philippine Janssens
She is a dear friend of Remi's and attends the only other top business school in Paris called ESSEC. Now this young lady has a dad who owns a cafe that used to be Vincent Van Gogh's last house. Her mom has had her fabric/caftan business for the past 20 yrs catering to prestigious cliental in Europe, Africa and Asia. Philippine is 21 years old and she navigated Bangladesh like she had lived there for years. She would tell me of the shops and places that I had never heard of, striking the best deals with vendors, exploring the most best kept secrets of the city and trying any fruit that she could get her hands on. She connected with the children at the villages by taking pictures of them, showing THEM how to take pictures, and by distributing magic stashes of candy wherever she went.

These two interns drew large fan crowds wherever they traveled and were greeted with smiles and amazing hospitality from all the locals.

She is presently interning with a marketing company in Paris that creates marketing strategies for clients in the hospitality industry like hotels and resorts.

Kivanc Camber

Born and raised in Turkey, son of an member of the Turkish Parliament, Kivanc is amazingly well grounded for any 24 year old I have ever met. He is extremely passionate about Micro credit and is working with a Bangladeshi gentleman right now in Turkey, helping him run the micro finance organization there. He arranged his older sister's wedding long before he himself could even think of tying the knot.

He just finished his masters in Economics from a school in Birmingham, U.K. He read books on finance and the history of micro-credit throughout our trips in Bangladesh together.

He did his best to master both English and Bengali while traveling with us. I was not the best person to learn English from however, since I soon found out that I spoken Texan. He was warm and gentle, shy and a great listener. Never saw him in a bad mood and was very well groomed in ettiquettes and courtesy. He also melted in the heat in Bangladesh but thoroughly enjoyed himself.

Amee Patel

Amee Patel
She came to Grameen as a seasoned back-packer (India and South East Asia), worked as a volunteer at Katrina aftermath cleanup and had already set her path to be an associate at McKinsey.

She is a fresh graduate from Davidson college, majored in Political Science and Economics and ss the co-editor of "The Davidsonian,” she has found a way to encourage other writers to compose articles addressing diverse religious faiths in addition to reporting other campus news. In the words of one supporter, “she has a genuine interest in the lives of others and is always taking the lead in encouraging respect among people who differ.” In the midst of this and all she does, she always has an ever-ready smile for all she meets.

She was my roomate for the one month she spent in Bangladesh. We philosophised deep into the night about theology and eastern philosophy, explored much of Bangladesh together, shared a room at many Grameen field trips and talked about our dreams and aspirations.

Hamidur Rashid

This warm spirited young man (age 28) was born in Bangladesh and was raised in the Middle East. He has been on a fast track to "making a difference" with every opportunity he has gotten. He's a double majored graduate from Purdue University under two of the toughest degree plans in the school of Engineering in a smoking gun speed of 3 years. Hamid gave back to the student community there by engaging as the vice president of the Bangladeshi Student Association. He was already playing the real estate market by the age of 23 in Texas and made a resonating imppression at Schumberger as one of their top consultants after graduation.

Now at the Duke Business School, he is leaving an ever lasting mark by rejuvenating the International Business Club, consulting in South Africa and Zambia over beginning of the summer 2006, before he returned home to be an intern at Grameen. He just created and stirred the primodial soup to form Duke's first Micro-finance/ micro-credit society. He is already sitting on panels at different organizations and representing Duke at Global conferences. With this kind of a track record, Hamid comes with a promise to make the world a better place through economic development in developing countries esp. Bangladesh. His other passions include Robotics, dance and R&B music.

Sarah Siddiqi

She is a dreamer in every sense of the word. Her visions are clear as daylight, "Put Bangladesh on the MAP" and her chosen path of doing this is through sustainable tourism. This positive spirit was born in her grandmother's home in the same port town of Chittagong as Dr.Yunus of Grameen Bank. Even though she was raised in the same neighborhood as Hamid in the Middle East, her life has been on a vastly different track. She married very young, graduated fron UT in Environmental Biology and Fine Arts, and became a serial entrepreneur since.

She sold her art throughout college, started three companies, and did everything from being a graphic designer to market strategist. She combined her passions for art, networking, culitvating diversity & tolerance, by working with non-profit leadership/social impact programs, being the arts director for Cultural Societies in the Austin community and serving as the liasons in inter-racial group programs.

After ten years, this mother of three went back to school to get her MBA in entrepreneurship from one of the top rated Entrepreneurship schools in the country called Acton this year. During her summer at Grameen, she discussed her vision of sustainable tourism in Bangladesh through Grameen. She arranged tours for the Grameen interns, after which she fell in love with Bangladesh like never before. She has already started the groundwork for pursuing her dreams of establishing tourism there. Other other passions include culinary arts, yoga and Aikido.

M.K. Aaref

Traveling with this gentleman, was like walking around with an encyclopedia. Altough he was not a Grameen intern, he took the time to show us the country and extended his hospitality throughout our two month stay in Bangladesh.

What was his forte? Everything from archeological facts & history to photography and international culinary arts, with a wide stroke of world affairs in between. His passion for architecture led him to graduate in the field from the University of Houston. He went back to Bangladesh to establish his architectural firm after working on gigantic projects in the Middle East for a few years and doing his MBA from Ashton, U.K.

Aaref was born and raised in Bangladesh. His father was the Governor of one of the most prestigious banks in Bangladesh. He is a surreal link to both my husband and I because he was both our playmates at childhood.

His work can be spotted from a mile around town, because of his cutting edge trademarked style of soft curved lines and unusual choice of colored accented lighting. His contemporary glass house has the most breathtaking views of a lake and draws the most happening fashion shoot and music video recordings!

He functions like an Ambassador in Bangladesh of Bangladesh, connecting with top corporate execs and diplomats that visit the country giving them an arsty upscale cosmopolitan flavor of the city. He is one of the upcoming real estate developers quietly building his empire of modern structures and resorts.