Malcolm in Bangladesh - Day 2

September 23 was an exciting and eye opening day.

My session went very well and I think that we made some real progress in terms of coming up with some solutions to the challenges of poverty and sustainability for Asian Credit Unions, and it was the first time that I have had a chance to experience the sights, sounds and smells of the city beyond my hotel walls.

As a group we went through a number scenarios that I had come up with in terms of needs of member and how to develop products and services to meet those needs. It was interesting to me that in many cases the scenarios that I had developed were nowhere near the realities of the Asian market place. For example in Canada, approximately 50% of marriages end in divorce, this creates needs for savings and lending solutions for single parents. While common in Canada, the notion of single parents in Bangladesh was extremely foreign. According the statistics that I heard today, less than 1% of local marriages end in divorce and the numbers are similarly low elsewhere in Asia.

Young people here are not buying houses (in fact many Asian Credit Unions don’t offer mortgages) until they are much older, many are living with multiple generations in a single “flat”. Asian youth are saving for smaller scale things like computers, and electronic gadgets that many North Americans buy outright or finance through loans or credit cards. There is also a lot of emphasis on saving for education because in many cases even a secondary school education requires that the student finance at least a portion of it. Another interesting piece of information that I learned today was that many Asian’s are unable to afford to deliver their infants in hospitals. Without the support of a national healthcare systems, many young Asian families are forced to give birth at home without medical attention. We discussed this situation in detail and explored the possibilities of Credit Unions providing some sort of self-insurance for exactly this situation. A model exists in Indonesia where some Credit Unions are doing just this and we explored the possibilities of adapting and applying their solutions elsewhere on the continent.

The workshop felt great. We tackled some big issues and came up with some small, but actionable solutions. Everyone recognizes that these are huge issues and we don’t think that we can solve any of them, what we are hoping to do is bring about some small changes that can hopefully grow.

After the workshop, one of the participants (Shajal a Dhaka resident), a couple of other conference attendees and I explored a bit of this sprawling, over-crowded, polluted and incredibly impoverished city. We walked a ways, visited a local art gallery and library before taking a rickshaw (the city has 400,000 of them) to a place known as the Bongo Bazaar. This market was literally packed floor to ceiling with all sorts of clothing and fabrics. People were selling everything and negotiating was the name of the game. I was extremely hot and crowded and a little bit overwhelming. Without Shajal I would be been lost and I’m sure I would still be there walking around in the maze of aisles and corridors. I bought a couple of shirts as did the others and we wondered around this market for about an hour. It was quite an experience. I have never seen anything like it. Then we took a “Tuck Tuck” a three wheeled motorized rickshaw back to the hotel where we had dinner and shared the story of our experience with others.

Today was truly a day that I will never forget.

Looking forward to wrapping up the workshop tomorrow, the tour of the local Credit Union on Thursday and then my presentation to the conference on Saturday.