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I arrived home late Friday night - December 14, after twenty two glorious and life changing days in Bangladesh - a country that is emerging from being the poorest major country in the world and headed to be the first country that will totally overcome the bonds of poverty. Bangladesh is a country that is constantly being ravaged by weather disasters - with typically 40% of the country being flooded each year, hurricanes - like Sidr that killed over 5,000 people (much less than a hurricane in the 1990's that killed over 100,000 people) and famines. The country has experienced deep [View Full Entry]

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Yesterday, I was dissappointed that it did not work out for me to meet Mr. Fazle Hasan Abed - Founder and Chairperson of BRAC - the largest NGO in the world. Last night, while leaving BRAC Center to go shopping I saw Mr. Abed presiding over a presentation in the front of the BRAC Center. It ended soon and I went up and introduced myself to him and told him of my time with BRAC, what I am doing and expressed my admiration of him and his organization. He was very warm, was pleased to pose for a picture with me [View Full Entry]

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I am pleased to be back in Dhaka where I just had a great Steak Diane American style dinner at Brac Restaurant in the BRAC Center which also houses the BRAC Inn where I have returned and will stay one night before getting on a plane mid-day tommorow for my very long trip (24 hours travel time) trip back to good old California. I guarantee you - I will see all of the many things that we have in the U.S. far differently than I ever have. I was due to have a series of meetings with the BRAC top management [View Full Entry]

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Shabbir - who heads BRACS's Bangladesh microcredit program (manages 29,000 people) had asked me what I was doing on Friday - their holy day - and when I told him that I had no plans he asked Rozina to set up a tour for me. My expectation was that they were setting up a commercial tour guide and car. Instead what they had done was ask Rana, their Communications Officer to guide me, taking a BRAC vehicle and BRAC driver. Rana's office is near the Chairman and Founders office and Rana sets up all the tours for International visitors - as [View Full Entry]

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My tour of Dhaka was yesterday, Friday - the Muslim holy day - and one of my requests of Rena, my wonderful guide (more on Rena in my next blog) was to attend a service at a Mosque. Rena, like 85% of Bangladesh people is Muslim and I was very pleased to tell him of how I have so many wonderful Muslim friends in Santa Barbara, about our Interfaith Initiative and how pleased I am to be helping my Muslim friends obtain aproval to build a Mosque one mile from my home. Rena and I agreed that it is the manifestation [View Full Entry]

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The BRAC Inn, located in the lower floors of the BRAC Center is a lovely and modern hotel with an excellent restaurant. Here I have been able to slow down a bit and recover from the very intense experience and more challenging living conditions during the first 10 days at Grameen Dialogue. The highlight of yesterday was meeting with the person who launched the BRAC Uganda program (and lived in Uganda for 14 months to launch the program) and receiving favorable input that we (Daudi, Peter and myself) may be able to call upon BRAC to provide microcredit and health services [View Full Entry]

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The faces of the borrowers provide the most impactful reflection of why we are here and are drawn to serve. The Pastor in our group had shot a particularly impactful set of photos. They were close up with of the faces of the women. My shots had not been closeups until then. The attached photos (from last week) started to capture that view - but I hope to do a much better job as I go to the field with BRAC. There is much to show and share about relative to the village experience. Because I did not have access to [View Full Entry]

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I have now enterred a new and very different phase of my trip. I have moved to be with BRAC - the largest NGO in the world and the second largest microcredit organizaion in the world. BRAC has a very wholistic approach and includes large components of Heath Care and Education along with legal support of the poor and other humanitarian services. They have a very different program from Grameen for the Ultra Poor and that was the original reason that I have come to BRAC. Anne Hastings of Fonkoze had told me of this program that she is using in [View Full Entry]

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Twenty very tired participants from all over the world ended a glorious ten days together at Grameen Dialogue. It started by meeting Professor Muhammad Yunus and ended with our sharing our plans for the future, expressing our gratitude to all of our wonderful hosts at Grameen and telling about what each of us is planning do do with what we learned. I ended my sharing by telling them that one of the reasons I was there was to honor them and what they have done for the world. We toured the museum filled with the many many awards that Professor Yunus [View Full Entry]

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