Top Highlights

• Like sleep, death by starvation happens so quietly, so inexorably, one does not even sense it happening. And all for lack of a handful of rice at each meal. In this world of plenty, a tiny baby, who does not yet understand the mystery of the world, is allowed to cry and cry and finally fall asleep without the milk she needs to survive. The next day...
• In the world of development, if one mixes the poor and the nonpoor in a program, the nonpoor will always drive out the poor, and the less poor will drive out the more poor, unless protective measures are instituted right at the beginning. In such cases, the nonpoor reap the benefits of all that is done in the name of the poor.
• For example, when we discovered that support groups were crucial to the success of our operations, we required that each applicant join a group of like-minded people living in similar economic and social conditions. Convinced that solidarity would be stronger
• Because the group approves the loan request of each member, the group assumes moral responsibility for the loan. If any member of the group gets into trouble, the group usually comes forward to help.
• But we soon discovered new socioeconomic reasons to focus on women. The more money we lent to poor women, the more I realized that credit given to a woman brings about change faster than when given to a man.