Positive Deviance

Masud Sheikh masheikh at cogeco.ca
Tue Apr 12 13:36:38 PDT 2005


Dear Lisa and other friends,

I am posting some information on Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan and Muhammad Yunus.

Lisa, please feel free to write to me off list, in case you wish to continue
this conversation. It may not be of general interest to the list.

 

Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan joined the Indian Civil Service in 1936, before
Pakistan came into being. The civil service in India & Pakistan (& probably
other former colonies) is prestigious, and wields great power (Anyone who
saw the British TV program “Yes, minister” can relate to this easily). Here
is a snippet from a Web site about Dr. Khan:

 

His simplicity in dress and living was censured by his superiors. An
idealist, he sought while in government service to do the impossible of
bringing about an Islamic revolution in the lives of the Muslim inhabitants
of the area. Deeply moved by the misery of the ignorant masses, KHAN was
angered by his own helplessness and by government indifference. He was also
caught up emotionally in India's struggle to be free.............. He wrote
in his diary, "I want to lead the life of a poor man."

 

Anyway, the net of it all was that he resigned from the civil service and
devoted the rest of his life to projects - first in East Pakistan, and later
in Karachi, Pakistan. Three projects in Karachi related to “Low Cost
sanitation”, “The Family Enterprise Economic Program” & “Low Cost Housing
Program”. 

 

Dr. Khan invariably came up with more practical and cost-effective solutions
than international agencies trying to transfer best-practice solutions. His
work is continued by others at the Urban Resource Centre in Karachi
http://www.urckarachi.org/home.htm

 

Muhammad Yunus is still around, and known for having founded “Grameen Bank”
in Bangladesh. I only know what I have read about him – from a distance. His
work seems  better known than Dr. Khan’s. The following snippet is taken
from the Web site: http://www.grameen-info.org/index.html

In 1974, Professor Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist from Chittagong
University, led his students on a field trip to a poor village. They
interviewed a woman who made bamboo stools, and learnt that she had to
borrow the equivalent of 15p to buy raw bamboo for each stool made. After
repaying the middleman, sometimes at rates as high as 10% a week, she was
left with a penny profit margin. Had she been able to borrow at more
advantageous rates, she would have been able to amass an economic cushion
and raise herself above subsistence level.

Realizing that there must be something terribly wrong with the economics he
was teaching, Yunus took matters into his own hands, and from his own pocket
lent the equivalent of £ 17 to 42 basket-weavers. He found that it was
possible with this tiny amount not only to help them survive, but also to
create the spark of personal initiative and enterprise necessary to pull
themselves out of poverty. 

Against the advice of banks and government, Yunus carried on giving out
'micro-loans', and in 1983 formed the Grameen Bank, meaning 'village bank'
founded on principles of trust and solidarity.

Don’t they both appear to be “positive deviants”? 

All best wishes - Masud

 

 

    

          

 

 

 

 

 

  

  

     

 

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at
the testing point - C.S. Lewis 

 


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