Small Loans, Big Dreams: How Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus and Microfinance are Changing the World

Book Description

A comprehensive look at the concept of micro-financing

Micro-financing is considered one of the most effective strategies in the fight against global poverty. It can be implemented on the massive scale necessary to respond to the urgent needs of the world's poorest. And now, in Small Loans, Big Changes, author Alex Counts looks at the lives of micro-lending borrowers from the Grameen Foundation in Bangladesh and Chicago. All of the borrowers profiled here are women of little-to-no means, each struggling to gain financial independence. Readers will discover how, in Bangladesh, these women face off against very poor living conditions and the prejudice of men, while in Chicago, they must overcome crime and other hurdles that come with life in the inner city. Written in a straightforward and accessible style, Small Loans, Big Changes reveals how Muhammad Yunus and his concept of micro-financing has helped those living in poverty achieve real financial independence.

Alex Counts (Washington, DC) is President and CEO of Grameen Foundation, a nonprofit, Washington, D.C.-based organization that has grown from modest beginnings in 1997 to become a global network of 52 micro-finance partners in 22 countries. He trained to be a catalyst for change under Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the founder and Managing Director of the Grameen Bank and corecipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.