Bangladesh Experience: Field Trip- Village

I am back at Dhaka after spending 5 days in Sadipur Village (in Sonargoan town- historic administrative, commercial and maritime center in Bengal), approximately 100 km from Dhaka.

There I stayed in the branch office, where the Branch Manager Mahbub and his team received me very well. My accommodation was fine and the food was very good. The cooker, a very nice lady, was cooking fresh meals everyday for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

In the first night I got scared of very fat cockroaches that for my relief didn’t visit us again (at least in big groups) in the following days. I also had the mosquito net, which made me feel protected and were able to open the windows to sleep. Otherwise was too hot! (I tried to sleep with windows closed, but it was impossible, because for some minutes or hours the electricity can fail, then sleeping without fan with windows closed is really hard.)

Well, let me talk about the important and more interesting staff.

During my stay I participated in center meetings, visited the area office and made a lot of interviews with Grameen Bank members (borrowers).

I also visited a village, where people produce very beautiful saris. It is a traditional business that had been there for more than 200 years! The saris are sold to the retailers from 2.000 BDT up to 100.000 BDT (20 euros to 1.000 euros approximately)

In our last day on my way back, we picked up another group of students and visited Grameen Shakti (Energy) and visited Veolia water plant.

To clarify the organization structure, Grameen Bank has branch offices in the villages, but the goal is: the bank goes to the client, not the opposite. So under the branch office, there are centers. The centers are small houses, where the center manager (Gramenn Bank representative) organizes weekly meetings. In these meetings, they collect the installments; the members (or borrowers) make new loan proposals and train new members.

In addition, the branch offices report to one Area office, which reports to a Zonal office and then to the Head Office.