Kirtimaan - Dr. Muhammad Yunus

Dr. Muhammad Yunus was born on 28th June, 1940 in Chittagong, Bangladesh. He is one of those legendary men who succeed to spread out his dream all over the world. His invented micro-credit program has become a role-model to the world now a day.

His father, Muhammad Dulu Mia, a goldsmith, did well for himself and pushed his sons to seek higher education. But his main influence was his mother, Sofia Khatun, who had 14 children, of whom five died in childbirth.
Now his family is with his wife Afrozi Yunus and two girls, Monika and Dina.

He studied at Chittagong Collegiate School and later at Chittagong College. He got his B.A. degree on 1960 and M.A. on 1961 from University of Dhaka.
A Fulbright Scholar at Vanderbilt University, Professor Yunus received his Ph.D. in Economics in 1969. Later that year, he became an assistant professor of Economics at Middle Tennessee State University, before returning to Bangladesh where he joined the Economics Department at Chittagong University.

His dream, which he is actively pursuing, is the total eradication of poverty from the world. "One day," he says confidently, "our grandchildren will go to museums to see what poverty was like."

He is the first Bangladeshi Nobel prize winner for peace (2006) partially with his Grameen Bank for his works to eliminate poverty. He received the prize on 10th December, 2006 which became a day of pride for all Bangalis.

The Yunus philosophy of micro-credit first took shape in 1976, when Grameen Bank Project, as it then was, lent a total of $25 to 10 landless people in Jobra - a rural village of Bangladesh. Today, it disburses $20 million in loans each month to 1.6 million borrowers, 94% of them women. Grameen -- known, fittingly, as the Poor Women's Bank -- has 1,042 branches and 11,000 employees; it reaches into 34,000 of Bangladesh's 68,000 villages. Who qualifies for a loan? "The less you have," says Yunus, "the higher the priority you get." But Grameen is no charity. It charges annual interest of 20% and is strict about the terms. "Handouts take away initiative and help maintain poverty," he says. Yet 98% of loans are honored.

Besides Grameen Bank he has created a number of companies in Bangladesh to address diverse issues of poverty and development. Among the companies are :

Grameen Phone (a mobile telephone company),
Grameen Cybernet (Internet Service Provider),
Grameen Communications (Rural Internet Service Provider),
Grameen Software company,
Grameen Information Technology Park,
Grameen Fund (Social Venture Capital Company),
Grameen Capital Management company,
Grameen Textile company,
Grameen Knitwear company,
Grameen Renewable Energy company,
Grameen Health company,
Grameen Education company,
Grameen Agriculture company,
Grameen Fisheries and Livestock company,
Grameen Business Promotion company etc.

Professor Yunus is responsible for many innovative programs benefiting the rural poor. In 1974, he pioneered the idea of Gram Sarker (village government) as a form of local government based on the participation of rural people. This concept proved successful and was adopted by the Bangladeshi government in 1980.

In 1978, he received the President's award for Tebhaga Khamar (a system of cooperative three-share farming, which the Bangladeshi government adopted as the Packaged Input Program in 1977).

The UN secretary general appointed Professor Yunus to the International Advisory Group for the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing from 1993 to 1995. Professor Yunus has also served on the Global Commission of Women's Health, the Advisory Council for Sustainable Economic Development, and the UN Expert Group on Women and Finance. He also serves as the chair of the Policy Advisory Group (PAG) of Consultative Group to Assist the Poorest (CGAP). Yunus has also served on many committees and commissions dealing with education, population, health, disaster prevention, banking, and development programs. He is currently on the boards of many international organizations including Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia (a Grameen replication project), the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, and Credit and Savings for the Poor in Malayasia. Professor Yunus also sits on the board of the Calvert World Values Fund, the Foundation for International Community Assistance, the National Council for Freedom From Hunger, RESULTS and the International Council of Ashoka Foundation, all of which are located in the US.

The Ramon Magsaysay Award (1984) from Manila.
The Aga Khan Award for Architecture (1989) from Geneva.
The Mohamed Shabdeen Award for Science (1993) from Sri Lanka.
The World Food Prize by World Food Prize Foundation (1994) from the US.
The Seoul Peace Prize (2006) from Korea.
The Nobel prize for peace (2006).

Professor Yunus has received honorary doctorate degrees from the following universities:

University of East Anglia, U.K. (1992).
Oberlin College, U.S.A. (1993).
University of Toronto, Canada (1995).
Haverford College, U.S.A. (1996).
Warwick University, U.K.(1996).
Saint Xaviers' University, U.S.A. (1997).
University of the South, U.S.A. (1998).
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium (1998).
Yale University, U.S.A. (1998).
Brigham Young University, U.S.A. (1998).
University of Sydney, Australia (1998).
Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia (2000).
University of Turin, Italy (2000).
Colgate University, Hamilton, U.S.A. (2002).
University Catholique of Louvain, Belgium (2003).
Universitad Nacional De Cuyo, Argentina (2003).
University of Natal, South Africa (2003).
Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswayvidyalaya, India (2004).
Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand (2004).
University of Florence, Italy (2004).
University of Bologna, Italy (2004).
University of Complutense, Spain (2004).