Ireland can make it through the tough times, says PRIYA RAJSEKAR, but only if we extend credit to ordinary people with extraordinary ideas
In recent times, the easy-going spirit of Ireland has been replaced by one of doom and gloom. Daily we are bombarded with depressing news of bank scams, job losses and bleak prospects.
It is necessary to be informed of the economic downturn. However, the average person is now just a mute spectator watching helplessly as his or her hard-earned savings dwindle rapidly. They have no time for political or academic discussions: they’re too busy looking for new jobs to pay the bills.
If Barack Obama has succeeded in reaching out to millions in America, and in selling his high-budget stimulus package, it is probably because he sounds like one of the masses, not some high-flying executive in an ivory tower. He has worked his way up to the top, and there is understanding and empathy in his voice.
Besides, his mother – who has been involved in working at the grassroots level with communities in Indonesia – inculcated in him the desire of eradicating poverty by working from the lowest rungs.
Mohammad Yunus had a similar desire. The Nobel laureate, founder of the Grameen Bank and inventor of ‘microcredit’ brought much hope to thousands of disadvantaged people in Bangladesh, especially women, by helping them on the road to financial independence.
Based simply on trust, microcredit involves handing out small loans for people to start an enterprise even without collateral or other security needs which exclude people of limited means from access to loans, effectively sealing their fate.
What started as a small step has now grown into a movement that has reached even parts of the western world such as America, thanks to people like Hillary Clinton who have great faith in its merits.
India has a long history of female success stories in business, and I’m not just talking about the women who head multinationals such as Pepsico or HSBC. In the late 1950s, a group of women of very modest means started the ‘Mahila Grah Udyog’, or home-based industry for women.
Using the only skill that they had, which was cooking, these Bombay-based women set up a small enterprise with what is now the equivalent of a little more than a euro. Today their enterprise, which has over 40,000 employees and a turnover of 3.14bn rupees (€47.9m), continues to operate on the same principles of co-operation and female empowerment that it began with.
In Ireland, too, women have played a crucial role in every sphere of life, but there is little to encourage new enterprise among those who have the big ideas, but lack the capital to realise them.
In particular, when we think of the sheer volume of immigrants who are willing but unable to work, mostly women on dependent visas or awaiting decisions on refugee applications, it is hard not to shudder at the sheer waste of talent and potential.
As statistics show, the immigrant population is highly educated and resourceful, yet this high quality of human resource has been allowed to waste away.
Even now, given a chance, most people in this situation will be able to do their bit to facilitate a turnaround. Export or exchange of trade is a big possibility when immigrants are involved – and by not allowing it, the Government is losing a major opportunity.
The Guardian recently carried an article by its business editor Ruth Sutherland on how the women of Iceland have taken control of the economy and have vowed to replace a culture of banking and business recklessness with openness and social responsibility.
It is a choice that Ireland has to make: to wait for a yet-to-be-devised ‘solution’ to trickle down from the top, or to be proactive and take control through small but sure steps starting at the bottom.
priyaraj@naabi-limited.com
