Last 4 days in Bangladesh...

Thanks to Jim Louttit. With whom I worked at Scotiabank before, I managed to connect with BRAC, probably the largest NGO in Bangladesh, and definitely one of the best ones I have seen thus far in my life.

So, my plan to end such amazing journey through (part of) Bangladesh, was to dedicate my last few days with BRAC. Little did I know how amazing they were.

BRAC ' director of the Ultra Poor program had generously invited me to spend three days with them touring some villages to see their work from closer. Ha! How amazing!!!???

So after coming back to Dhaka (from Khulna), I had a whole afternoon to kill till the next day where i was to meet with BRAC, so I dropped my bags in a hotel near their office, and spent the whole day walking through Dhaka center, to discover the tanneries as it is apparently such a huge industry in the country. Ha! They even have a Leather Engineering and Technology university!!! So quite a fascinating day of leather and A LOT of walking! Though I must say, these tanneries do have the charm of the ones in Marrakesh.

That evening went I got home, I was dead. Two days without really any sleep and a whole day of urban walking knocked me down. So in bed by 9pm. O:-)

The following three days I spent with Wazeedul, who in some ways looks like a shorter and less bulky version of Mohammad Ali and who is the manager of the Ultra Poor program and has been with BRAC for more than 10 years.

Those three days were magical. Yes I know, I use that strong word often. But in all honesty, all these moments truly are magical in so many ways, especially compared to the life I had back in the corporate superficial and materialistic world.

BRAC is so interesting as it fully integrates the whole value chain of poverty alleviation. It first targets the poorests of the poorests by giving them (selected groups per village) a 18-months training hand holding on livelihoods, skills, income generation, basic financial literacy, and even transfers over to them some assets (cows, goats, poultry,...) so that these trainees can actually start generating some income for themselves. They even receive a small stipend to compensate for the potential time consuming income loss of managing the new assets until they can actually start generating some income. Then based on their evolution over the 18 months period, BRAC graduates them and transitions them over to the micro credit program where they now take more responsibilities and have the opportunity to tremendously increase their assets for a small interest rate. But they are still coached and closely monitored by BRAC's team. And ultimately, they can move up to create some social enterprises hand in hand with BRAC. Social enterprise from which profits are generated and then used to finance 75% of the grant based other programs of BRAC. Simply brilliant how this actually huge 75% social enterprise (though more categorized as an NGO) is addressing all the issues of poverty alleviation and is almost self sufficient in doing so.

So for three days I got to meet with many of these poor women, some from the very first phase and some from the micro credit phase. If at first, when witnessing the tears of desperation yet of hope as well from the ultra poor women I got so moved and disturbed inside because of such human nature inequality and unfairness, (Ha! Yet another proof to me that if there really was a loving God he would not have created such inequalities. What would be the point? How would that be a sign of love and care?!) when I the saw how transformed and proud the women from the micro credit phase were, I felt so much better and so grateful for the work BRAC is doing.

Their model is just inspiringly brilliant! Really, check them out online. They don't scream all over the world about their work about what they have created. They just do it. Piece by piece, but they do it.

During my journey through Bangladesh, one of my concern was to check this global hype about Yunus and his Grameen Bank for the poor.
All over the world people see him as the savior of the poor. Then one who has transformed the solution model to alleviating poverty.

Well let me tell you that after doing a lot of fact checking and asking in cities and villages, inside of Bangladesh, Grameen is actually seen as a big scam. A purely profit maximizing corporation who does not care a bit about the poor. Yes, perhaps when Yunus started he was close to the poor and genuinely cared to provide a full solution. And perhaps he did to some degree and for a very short period of time. But when Grameen because the empire that it is today, the Grameen and Yunus you read about in books and the ones you hear about from the mouths of the actual poor and the Bangladeshi, are entirely different.

Grameen bank is a bank, and a bank is here to generate cash. Period.

Grameen is priding itself for providing loans without any collateral. A big lie apparently. If a villager is unable to make one weekly payment, Grameen will force him/her to sell his/her assets (house or livestock) to make the payment. Angelina and I had actually heard that from the mouth of one of the Grameen collection agent in Kanchanpur, but we had a hard time believing it. Now I am convinced,

However, it is true that Yunus and his books have spread a lot of inspiration all over the world. But it is clear that neither the concept of micro credit nor social business have been created by Yunus and Grameen. Not at all. Many organizations, grassroots for the most part, had been doing this for decades before Grameen even made its first loan. It was just not being publicized.

Anyhow, I don't want to go on and on about this as it won't solve anything. Do, however, read Yunus books, not as a successful example of what he has done, but rather as an inspiration of what you could do.

But in a nutshell, the concept of social business (which now I am a huge fan off, and much more than micro credit) consists in helping people in need make money while you also at the same time generate some revenue for yourself. And the surplus profit generated from the business then gets all or in part re-injected into the business to make it grow. Simple but so impactful.

There are no set of strict rules as long as you are respecting the law and human rights and having a positive impact on the lives of others who need help, you are on the right track.

So now, after three days of high inspiration from a successful and impactful model I can't wait to find how I want to replicate a similar integrated approach and help the poor get out of poverty and not contribute anymore in helping the rich get richer.

Hehe! Sorry for the messy post and the absence of story telling. Though the wonders I have seen in those villages with Wazeedul are with me forever, the impact they have had on my inspiration and ambitions is more what I wanted to share.

So voila!

Oh, and I could not bid farewell to Bangladesh without mentioning the amazingly insightful and also inspiring last diner I had in the country.
A friend of Angelina (Mariana from Brazil) whom I had met two weeks before with Angelina, and who works for MSF had invited me to the MSF house for diner. Hmmm...how to not say a giant YES to such invite?! So we (a French, a Philipino, an American, a Brazilian, and a Ugandan) spent the whole evening, eating delicious food and sharing stories about our many trips and about our frustrations about the world. Gosh, I wish that diner never stopped. It was so interesting and insightful. The stories of a backpacker (me) vs the ones of MSF workers. Huge contrasts. And well, all of them had spent quite a lot of time in Africa, so ha! Here we go everyone: I am definitely going to Africa this year, and so far, strongly considering Mali, Burkina, Niger, Guinee, Ethiopia, and Uganda.

My objective or deadline as Sebastian would call it is to be in Brazil before the end of the year. :-)

Ok, bye bye Bangladesh. You have definitely given me way more than I could ever have imagined. I hope that the jewel of a country that you are does not get spoiled by tourism and consumerism like so many south east Asian countries have been going trough for years now. Stay true to who you are: beautiful sceneries with people with gigantic hearts and smiles.