BANKING on POOR WOMEN
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 1229.
Listening 1
Listening Comprehension
- Listen to the text and answer the following questions:
1. What is the topic of the text?
2. How can banks help poor women to change their lives?
3. Why does Grameen Bank lend money mostly to women? Why does it not lend to people in urban areas?
4. What is a subsidiary effect of microlending programs?
5. What are some social ills that are often associated with poverty?
- Listen to the text and fill in the gaps.
| A | For many people, there seem to be no escape from ______________; in other words, they are poor, and they have no hope that this will ever change. In addition, they have the social problems of poverty – among them, low social status, violence, poor health, and lack of education. |
| B | Imagine this situation: a poor woman has an idea for a small business to ______________ herself and her family out of poverty. She needs a little money to begin this business. She goes to a bank to borrow the money, and the banker interviews her. At this bank, as at most banks, the borrower must meet three necessary conditions: ______________, ______________, and ______________. That is, if this woman wants to borrow money from the bank, she must show that she (1) is honest (has character, (2) is able to run her business (has capacity), and (3) owns a house, land, or something valuable (has collateral) for the bank to take it if she can't pay back the money. So what happens to the woman? The bank won't lend her the money because she doesn't have any collateral. In such a situation, there seems to be no way for the woman to break the cycle of poverty and the problems that are associated with it. |
| Microlending | |
| C | One possible solution these days is ______________. This is a system of special banks and programs that are loading money to “the poorest of the poor.” The idea began in Bangladesh, with a man named Mohammad Yunus, who founded Grameen Bank. The bank lends small amounts of money to people who want to go into business. These are people who could never receive a loan from a “regular” bank. To receive a loan through Grameen Bank, people still must have character and capacity, but collateral is not necessary any longer. There is a different ______________: each borrower must join a “borrowing group.” This small group meets regularly, follows a list of rules from the bank, and offers advice and support the members. Instead of collateral, there is a ______________; i.e., group members make sure that each person pays back his or her loan. They want to keep their “good name” and continue doing business with the bank. |
| What Works, What doesn't | |
| D | Grameen Bank has many successes and only a few failures. In a developing country such as Bangladesh, a person can buy a cow or a sewing machine and begin a small business with only $20 to $50. Today, there are 3.7 million borrowers in 46,000 villages in Bangladesh. The bank makes over $33 million in loans in a typical month, and the repayment rate is an amazing 98%. At first, the bank lent half of the money to men and half to women. Unfortunately, most of the Bangladesh men spent the money on themselves, not the business. Now, 94 percent of the borrowers are women. In Bangladesh – and in other countries that started similar microlending programs – the bankers soon learned that urban were not as successful as rural ones. Borrowers in cities did not always repay the loans. Because of the importance of peer pressure, microlending is more effective in small villages, where everyone knows and depends on everyone else, than in urban areas (where it's possible to be ______________ - unknown). |
| Subsidiary Effect | |
| E | The primary goal of this and other similar programs is the ______________ of poverty. However, as poverty has decreased, there have been some surprising secondary effects of microlending programs. Perhaps the main ______________ effect has been a change of the ______________ status of women. Traditionally, in some societies people thought of women as ______________. But when a woman has ______________ to money and is able to demonstrate her capacity for business, she often receives more respect than before from the male members of her family and from the entire village. |
| Global Fund for Women | |
| F | In any country, women are the poorest of the poor. They produce more than half of the world's food, but they own just one percent of the world's land. They are 51 percent of the world's population, but very, very little money goes to programs to help them. In the late 1980s, Anne Firth Murray ______________ and began the Global Fund for Women. Unlike microlending programs, this ______________ gives ______________, not loans. The money is given, not lent. Another difference is that unlike Grameen Bank, which helps people begin business, the direct focus of the Global Fund for Women is to help find solutions to ______________ - e.g., violence against women, lack of health care, and lack of education. Since 1987, the fund has given $37 million to over 2,500 women's groups in 160 countries. For instance, the fund has helped the Petersburg Center for Women in St. Petersburg, Russia. This center cares for women who are the victims of violence and abuse from family members. In Kenya, the Global Fund supports a program that gives health care and education to women with AIDS. In a village in southern India, it is ______________ a woman who has started a ______________ program to teach poor women to read. |
| Breaking the Cycle | |
| Grameen Bank and the Global Fund for Women may use different methods, but they have the same goal – the eradication of poverty. They also have a lesson for banks around the world: it's good business to give a chance to the poor. With careful planning, education, and cooperation, most people use the money well and then ______________ the money and knowledge back into their communities. There is hope that they can begin to break the cycle of poverty for themselves, their families, and society. | |
- Match the words with their meanings. Write the letters on the lines.
| ____ | literacy | a | being poor | |
| ____ | poverty | b | necessity | |
| ____ | requirement | c | not valuable | |
| ____ | anonymous | d | ability to read | |
| ____ | worthless | e | unknown |
| <== previous lecture | | | next lecture ==> |
| I MADE IT MYSELF | | | Excerpt Two |