Nobel Prize Winner Opens Bank In Jackson Heights
BY THOMAS COGAN

Mohammed Yunus and Councilman Eric Gioia cut the ribbon at the opening of Grameen America in Jackson Heights.

Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi founder of the Grameen Bank and with the bank the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, was present in Jackson Heights Friday, April 25 to officiate at the formal opening of the first branch of Grameen America. The branch, like its South Asian forbear, operates on a group lending and savings model to enable low-income people to maintain bank accounts and take out loans. Grameen has always asserted that such people, who have comparatively little money or none at all, are not able to conduct banking procedures with standard banks here or elsewhere in the world. Grameen advertises itself as "Banking for the Unbanked".

The Grameen America office is located one flight up at 37-66 74th St. and is one of several small businesses crowded into that second floor. It has actually been open since November, and made its first loan in mid-January. At the time of the opening ceremony in late April it had 180 members and 170 borrowers.

The ceremony, complete with giant scissors to cut an opening day ribbon, could not be conducted in the narrow corridor that leads to the Grameen office, nor was it practical to hold it on the sidewalk before a downstairs doorway. The participants and the media therefore went to the Delhi Palace restaurant at 37-33 74th St., where several children of borrowers sang, officials and politicians spoke and Yunus, a professor of economics, marveled that a Grameen bank was opening, not merely in America, but in "the most celebrated city in the world".

Leading the festivities up to the time the children sang and Yunus was introduced was Vidar Jorgensen, president of Grameen America, who said the Jackson Heights branch was set up in that community because the neighborhood is ethnically diverse and there are many struggling immigrants to appeal to. Standing on a stairway in the restaurant, Jorgensen, whose smile never seemed to fail, described himself as an immigrant also, having come from Norway with his parents in 1949. "My mother worked as a maid on Park Avenue," he said. He introduced Shah Newaz as head of the Jackson Heights office. Newaz has worked as a Grameen program director in Bangladesh and the Dominican Republic. The children, perhaps 10 in number, were tiered on the stairway as they sang Michael Jackson's "Heal the World" and Yunus stood beaming behind them. Next to be introduced was City Councilmember Eric Gioia, who praised people who "are willing to work extraordinarily hard" but need an institution like Grameen to give them a fiscal break. Finally, Jorgensen introduced Yunus.

The Nobel Prize winner hailed New York's celebrity but also said it is "the capital of the world banking system" and thus it took audacity to come here. Of the new branch and its customers he said, "Your small step will be a giant step" and that the launching "opens the door for many millions who follow you". That implied the blossoming of branches in several places, and he did say he has been asked to open offices in Baltimore, Washington D.C. and New Orleans. He's too shrewd to be dazzled, however. "We have to show it on the ground," he said, so "let it work from here." It has been working for a few months, and he said those who have borrowed have been "perfect" in their repayment. There is a stated goal to have 1,000 customers by the one-year mark, which would be roughly the end of 2008. There is also talk of two other branches in the city, but that is not an official projection. Yunus appreciated the publicity the opening has received, but said one also gets publicity "when it doesn't work", though of another kind. He is nevertheless confident it will work, and when it does it can be tried elsewhere.

His idealism came through too, and an audience that included Asians and Latinos who look to the Grameen model cheered him on. "Nobody should be denied," he said, to their approval. "Even the beggar on the street should not be refused by the financial system."