6/13: Project Introduction

On June 15th, we will travel to Dhaka, Bangladesh, where we will spend six months at the Nari Jibon School. Nari Jibon was founded by Dr. Kathy Ward, a sociologist, to provide classes in tailoring, English and computers to poor, underserved women in Dhaka. We will use money we have raised (and are raising-- donations will be accepted throughout the project) through the exceedingly generous support of family, friends, and many wonderful organizations to help these women to establish their own businesses through a microcredit program.

Through our academic programs, we have developed an exciting new microcredit model which responds to the large body of research which has come out of the microcredit industry in Bangladesh. The model combines a cooperative business structure with a revolving loan fund lending mechanism to create a microcredit program which will aims at self-sufficiency. This model, while it takes many components from other successful programs, has never been tested before. As such, information we will gather during our time at Nari Jibon about the efficacy of the model will be useful to other microcredit programs of its kind. The Nari Jibon microcredit program will ideally provide a replicable model for future microcredit programs in Bangladesh and other parts of the world.

Our model focuses on the potential of microcredit to empower women, not only financially, but also socially and politically. Microcredit can be most effective as a tool for poverty alleviation when combined with education, and when its ultimate objectives involve poverty alleviation rather than ensuring profits for the lenders.

For the next six months, we will update this website with stories and pictures about our experiences at Nari Jibon. We welcome you to follow along with our project on this site, and to share the link to our webpage with any friends who may be interested. We would appreciate any comments you would like to leave for us on the site or by e-mailing us directly at andersandkasia@gmail.com.