"We Shall Overcome!" | A Professional Journey
“We Shall Overcome!”
She sits on a straw mat inside a mud hut. Two
plastic, cherry-colored bangles hang from her
wrist, the only jewelry she owns. Her black hair
is pulled back beneath her emerald-green sari,
which, like the hundred taka note she presses
beneath her thin, delicate fingers, was colorful
once upon a time. Although her clothes have
worn and faded, her smile has not. She is
poor, as are the 40 other women seated beside
her. But she sits tall and proud. And that
smile!
Sunlight pours through the holes in the tin
roof above us and children peer through
cracks in the mud walls. Outside, indignation
conflates with laughter as the older, much
stronger kids push the younger ones aside, all
of them vying for a view of the white-skinned
stranger sitting with their mothers on the dirt
floor.
Just yesterday, I found myself in a similar setting,
only this time it was children who sat
cross-legged indoors, their parents busy toiling
underneath the hot, Bangladeshi sun. The
teacher and the students of this small, oneroom
school are thrilled to have a visitor, and
the children are asked to sing him a song.
They rise from their seats on the floor, the
taller ones having to duck to avoid the mobiles
hanging from the ceiling. They look at each
other nervously, not knowing what song to
sing or when to start. Sensing their apprehension,
the teacher prods them along. “Sing your
favorite song,” she says. “You know which
one.” The students nod in agreement. An
inaudible three-count ticks off in their heads,
and they begin. A friend translates for me,
whispering beneath the harmony:
We shall overcome, we shall overcome,
We shall overcome someday;
Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe,
We shall overcome someday.
“We shall overcome!” Looking at the woman
now before me, these three words float to my
memory and ring in my ears. Everything about
this woman—her washed out clothes, her back
erect and head held high, her wrinkled hands
and face, her smile—speaks silently to me a
tale of happiness and hardship, a life beset by
incredible obstacles and the joy and liberation
that comes when they’ve been crossed. Just
looking at her, I know she has overcome.
But she has yet to tell her story. And I don’t
even know her name. “What is it?” I ask her. “And why are you here, sitting with these
other women inside a small, humid hut?” Her name is Mumtaz. At a very young age, a
dowry was paid and Mumtaz found herself in
bed with a stranger; a teenage virgin becomes
a wife. Nearly nine months later, a baby boy
was born. Three more children followed—
another strapping son and two beautiful
daughters.
Shortly after the birth of her fourth child, Mumtaz’s husband unexpectedly died. In Bangladesh, where purdah keeps millions of women indoors and at the margins of society, the death of a husband is a mortal blow to his wife and to his children. Most women in rural Bangladesh have never studied beyond primary school and are forbidden from working outside of the home. Therefore, when the grim reaper robs a woman of her husband, he takes the family’s breadwinner with him; and the husband’s family often takes what little is left behind. Indeed, a poor Bangladeshi wife like Mumtaz can easily become a homeless, penniless widow overnight.
Such was Mumtaz’s fate; that is, until she discovered Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC)—or, more aptly, BRAC discovered her. BRAC, which humbly began as a small relief organization in the wake of Bangladesh’s war for independence, has since grown to become the largest, private development organization in the world. As part of its holistic approach to poverty alleviation, BRAC provides small loans to landless, assetless women without any collateral required. The only condition is that women form small groups of five and attend the village organization’s weekly meetings where they deposit a few taka into their savings account. In addition, they must make 18 promises including a promise to use sanitary water, send their children to school, be honest, and fight corruption and injustice.
After joining a small group and attending a week-long orientation, Mumtaz was welcomed into the village organization. Every Wednesday for the past three years, Mumtaz has attended the weekly meeting, deposited Tk 10 into her savings, and made the 18 promises. Within her first month as a member, Mumtaz was eligible for her first loan: Tk 4,000 ($58). Mumtaz used the money to purchase some shoes, which she sold at the local market. Her usiness fared well, thanks to her drive and the help of her two sons, who dropped out of high school to help with the business. After a year, Mumtaz was eligible for an even greater loan: Tk 6,000. A year after that, she was able to manage a Tk 10,000 loan. Her business is doing great and the profits are being pumped back into the household: a brand new tube well, sanitary latrines, new clothes for the kids, and her proudest investment, her daughters’ school tuition.
“My dream,” she says with a sparkle in those large, walnut eyes, “is that my daughters get a good education. I don’t want them to marry early. I want them to become doctors or teachers. Already, my daughters are reading at grade 10.” There it is again, that indelible smile. In a country where nearly 69 percent of all adult women are illiterate, she has good reason to. Thanks to BRAC and, more importantly, thanks to her own courage and resolve, her daughters will likely be able to stand up and sing, “We have overcome.”
John Meinen (BA ’04) wrote this essay while spending three months in Dhaka and in rural Bangladesh interning with Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee’s (BRAC) microcredit division. His honors thesis, written under the supervision of Professor A. Mushfiq Mobarak, combined household survey data with regional electoral data from Nigeria to statistically examine the political economy consideration in the allocation of health services across Nigerian districts. After graduation, John worked as an Americorps VISTA volunteer in a nonprofit business development center set up to foster entrepreneurship in the impoverished West Contra Costa County in California. As a student he was passionate to learn more about microcredit programs as a development and poverty eradication strategy, a concept he was introduced to in a development economics course taken at CU-Boulder. In 2006 he sought out an internship with BRAC, one of the worlds largest development-oriented NGOs. BRAC is also the local collaborator for two of Professor Mobarak’s field research projects in Bangladesh (on the consequences of indoor air pollution and on constraints to new technology adoption).