QuangBinh Micro Credit Program

The Micro Credit Program or Microloan is a model by Prof. Muhammad Yunus in 1983 in Bangladesh, India.

The Quang Binh Micro Credit Program has been carried out and concluded successfully. It began in 2007 and continued until 2012.

Quang Binh is among the poorest provinces of Central Vietnam, characterized by barren land and frequent natural disasters.

DUACT selected this location because of its great potential to produce results.

The goal of this Micro Credit Program was based on the following sub-goals:

·      Teaching poor recipient farmer with no credit history and no initial money to start a family business how to diligently and steadily build an asset from hard work.

·         To provide necessary technical and administrative supports for farmer to be successful.

·         Teaching farmer the habit of saving and repaying a loan and to build credit history.

·         Teaching farmer to be proud of owning of something by diligence and hard work.

A successful execution of this program depends on a Committee of local Elders comprised of trusted members of the community such as an administrator, a senior, an animal husbandry expert, and a village leader.

The role of the Committee is to propose and select able farmers to receive the loan, to monitor the progress, to provide technical advice, and to supervise the return of the loan at the end.

The preferred recipient is a female farmer who is thrifty by nature and a saver; however, a male farmer is also possible if he is married with the support of his wife.

With the expertise of an animal husbandry, the farmer would buy a calf or a healthy pregnant cow to raise with the hope that the cow would produce a family of many calves at the end. 

The original fund, 2,500.00USD, was available to help 62 families become self-sufficient farmers, improving their life steadily in the community. The working capital was recycled repeatedly for a total of 6 phases (Two phases in 2007, one phase in each of 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012). It is to note that the amount of the loan is small, 500.00 USD, to lend to a farmer, without interest during the term of the loan. The risk of loosing money is small. 

The net result is that the benefited farmers who have gone through this Program, at the beginning with no credit history, now can go on to apply any loan with security and credit history, to move on to become a proven entrepreneur, therefore to create a new element of economic development in rural community.

In other words, DUACT has provided the opportunity for them to LEARN BY DOING. It is another kind of education outside of a classroom, designed for the grown-ups.

We thank Vu Tan, DDS, in Houston, Texas for supporting this program.

Now it serves as a good example for Micro Credit Program in other communities.

 

 

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