Grameen America Opens in California

April  marked the launch of Grameen America’s operations in the San Francisco Bay Area. We cannot be more excited!  Each  Borrower is a true entrepreneur with a vision and a plan to get there.  Now these individuals have the assistance of affordable capital and group support with a hand up from Grameen America.

The dynamic Grameen America team, led by Branch Manager Rashidull Alam is located in Fruitvale, CA,  and will provide our holistic poverty alleviation products: microloans, savings, credit building and financial literacy.   

Mr. Alam  joins us from  his recent microlending leadership in  Zambia.  He became an expert in the Grameen model through his experience working with Professor Yunus and the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. 

Oakland  is an important focus for Grameen America and our supporters since as many as  22% of the residents’ income  fall below the poverty line.  We are pleased to join the committed group of microlenders and  organizations serving the Bay Area and California who are dedicated to providing much-needed services and opportunities to those in need. 

We will keep you informed from the field with more photos and stories of Borrowers’successes!

You land in a distant Latin-American culture. The honking and banging of beaten cars battles with the teeming, potholed streets to compete for your senses against the hiss of steam, the clanging of knives, and the enticingly spicy aromas wafting towards you from the frenetic mass of street vendors. They playfully fight each other, possessing only the weapons of smell and sound, for the chance to serve you what is certain to be among the best meals you’ll ever eat, for less than you would ever expect to pay. A cell phone ringing in someone’s pocket belts out the latest version of a salsa classic, which ends abruptly to the equally captivating music of sweetly accented Spanish. As you take in your surroundings, an array of flowers in a nearby storefront, infinitely varied in their shapes and colors, catches your eye…

Are you already looking up airplane tickets to South America? Well, you can close cheapfares.com; this took place just a few train stops from Midtown Manhattan.

In fact, this remarkable scene repeats itself every day, in some form or another, pretty much right in front of the doors of Grameen America’s Queens office, in the neighborhood of Jackson Heights.

Having joined the Grameen team as Data Manager (which also serves to explain my poor writing skills – sorry) in early January, I have had the privilege of visiting this neighborhood a few times, and have yet to come away un-awed. Though Grameen in no way takes credit for the richness of the culture and entrepreneurialism surrounding its offices –those have been there far longer than Grameen – I felt personally proud to be part of an organization that is working to expand the opportunities of those very poor entrepreneurs who create the vibrancy and wealth (cultural and otherwise) of this neighborhood, at which I can really only marvel.

My first thought, truth be told, was that I was walking right back into the small town in Ecuador where I have spent the last few months working for another micro-lending outfit. The Jackson Heights area of Queens is disproportionately Ecuadorian and northern Andean, and even the accent took me right back.

But as nice as it felt to re-immerse myself, it struck me that this is Grameen America, after all. Of course, it is physically operating in the United States, and certainly not all of its borrowers are of Hispanic heritage. But what makes it American?

It hit me right away;

My stepmother, a powerful influence on me ever since she joined my family when I was four, grew up in New York City, the daughter of a Puerto Rican mother and an Italian father who owned a small butcher shop in the Bronx. They had nearly nothing and spoke little English when they arrived, but by time I met them they had established a modest life for themselves; a lemon and orange tree adorned their back yard in Florida, and they would claim through substantial accents that they no longer really remembered their respective mother tongues. Their three children, all now parents themselves, lament having learned exclusively English.

Her family’s is a quintessentially American story, and it began in an area not far from the part of the Bronx where Grameen recently opened its doors. This, I saw, is the America of Grameen America. A future America in which a person’s unique ability to shape her own habitat is uninhibited by her background or economic conditions. Where opportunity is truly a universal possibility.

That sometimes seems as distant from American reality as Jackson Heights.

But in truth the beautifully chaotic rhythm of today’s Queens is both a reflection and a result of the green shoots of this much pined-for America. Each of its entrepreneurial players is no different than my stepmother’s parents; present and future Americans working hard and saving to retire to their own proverbial ‘yard of citrus trees in Florida’. Many in this country are nostalgic for more of just that America. Let’s help Grameen expand to make it happen.

By Marcus Berkowitz

Data Manager

Grameen America

A few weeks ago, as many NYC residence battened down the hatches in anticipation of Hurricane Irene, GA Project Manager, Nicole Meyers, spent two days at the main GA branch in Queens along with a professional photographer. The purpose of the trip was to talk to a few borrowers, sit in on some of the meetings and try to capture, in pictures and words, how the branches run.

The atmosphere of the Queens branch was hectic due to the heavy traffic of borrowers who had brought their children with them as they waited for new loans. One by one, borrowers would meet with loan officers, receive loans and hand over their blue ledgers so their balance could be updated. Despite the crowded space, the GA Credit Officers were very excited because it had been their most successful week to date.


One GA borrower who was interviewed had recently joined the program and talked about the importance of credit history and savings which she now had for the first time. Her fear of default fees and high interest rates prevented her from having a bank account or credit card but her loan from GA had given her the financial flexibility to start a business.

Nicole had hoped to meet a borrower who lived nearby so that she might ask to see her business. She lucked out in meeting Lucia, who ran a cosmetics business out of her basement. The next day Nicole was able to catch a small meeting in Lucia's house and witnessed first hand how borrowers help each other. Even though the other three members of her group also sold cosmetics, they worked together to find profitable parts of the neighborhood where each would have success.

There was also a new member of the group at the meeting, who was invited in when a former member left. Now a full group, the women seemed to share a bond both in business and in their personal lives, as each worked to send money back to their families in Mexico in the hope of improving their lives and one day bringing them to the US.

Lucia told Nicole that she would ideally like to set up an eveningcare center for children and salon store, so that mothers could come and get dressed for a night out while dropping off their children all in one spot. This is a great example of how GA borrowers create and adjust their businesses based on the needs of their community.

We wish Lucia and all the members of her group success and look forward to updating you with more news and pictures from the branch soon!