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Grameen
Volunteers
of America's New Opportunities program is modeled after a program
called Grameen, developed by Professor Muhammad Yunus for agricultural
and economic development in Bangladesh in the 1970's. "Grameen"
which means "rural" or "village" in Bangla
language, came into being with the following objectives:
-
extend
banking facilities to poor men and women;
-
eliminate
the exploitation of the poor by money lenders;
-
create
opportunities for self-employment for the vast multitude of
unemployed people in rural Bangladesh;
-
bring
the disadvantaged, mostly the women from the poorest households,
within the fold of an organizational format which they can
understand and manage by themselves; and
-
reverse
the age-old vicious circle of "low income, low saving &
low investment", into virtuous circle of "low income,
injection of credit, investment, more income, more savings, more
investment, more income".
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