Welcome back for the second part of my interview with Holly Mosher, who made the film, Bonsai People: The Vision of Muhammed Yunus. He is the founder of Grameen Bank and microcredit, which engages in very small loans to the poorest segment of society on a massive scale. He will receive the US Congressional Medal of Honor on April 17th. Yunus and Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
JB: Holly, your film, Bonsai People: The Vision of Muhammed Yunus, which you have been telling us about, mentions the "16 Decisions". What are they?
HM: Early on, the Grameen borrowers came up with what they call the 16 Decisions that, if followed, would drastically improve the quality of their lives:
We shall follow and advance the four principles of Grameen Bank: Discipline, Unity, Courage and Hard Work -- in all walks of our lives.
We shall bring prosperity to our families.
We shall not live in dilapidated houses. We shall repair our houses and work towards constructing new houses at the earliest.
We shall grow vegetables all the year round. We shall eat plenty of them and sell the surplus.
During plantation seasons, we shall plant as many seedlings as possible.
We shall plan to keep our families small. We shall minimize our expenditures. We shall look after our health.
We shall educate our children and ensure that they can earn to pay for their education.
We shall always keep our children and the environment clean.
We shall build and use pit-latrines.
We shall drink water from tubewells. If it is not available, we shall boil water or use alum.
We shall not take any dowry at our sons' weddings, nor shall we give any dowry at our daughter's wedding. We shall keep our center free from the curse of dowry. We shall not practice child marriage.
We shall not inflict any injustice on anyone, nor shall we allow anyone else to do so.
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