FROM THE PUBLISHER
Muhammad Yunus has a dream: the total eradication of poverty. In 1983, against the advice of banking and government officials, Professor Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with minuscule loans. His objective was not just to help the poor survive, but to create the spark of personal initiative and enterprise that would help them lift themselves out of poverty forever. In Banker to the Poor, Yunus describes the many hurdles to putting his ideas into action - battles with bank bureaucrats, the deep-rooted fears of his first, tentative borrowers, devastating floods and famines - as well as the victories - the first Grameen branch opening in Jobra village and the first cell phone delivered to a proud village "telephone lady." He challenges our common perceptions of the economic relationship between rich and poor, their respective rights and obligations, their origins, and their future.
