A borrower of TGMP at her Greenhouse
Threatened by the ever increasing unemployment figures in the country, Turkish women have been seeking ways to contribute to the household income. Their search has led women to discover microcredit. Microcredit has proved to be an effective way out of the financial crisis.
Unemployment figures have risen to 3.5 million in Turkey due to the global economic crisis. However, the global turmoil has not borne bad news for everyone, with several Turkish women managing quite well after seeing opportunities in the crisis to establish their own businesses.
The Turkish Grameen Microcredit Project (TGMP) started in the Diyarbakir region in 2003. Currently TGMP provides microcredit services through 42 branches. 100% of its borrowers are women. Between 2003 to 2008 TGMP provided microcredit to almost 10,000 borrowers. However, most likely because of the financial crisis, nearly 11,000 additional women have applied for microcredit within the past nine months.
More than 21,200 women have benefited from microcredit provided by TGMP. Initially, each borrower of the 5-member group received their first loan of 500 Turkish Liras. Since its inception, cumulatively TGMP has disbursed more than 27 million Liras as collateral-free microcredit. TGMP enjoys a 100% repayment rate.
There has been a significant increase in microcredit applications since the global economic crisis began to show its effects, according to Professor Aziz Akgül, who is a pioneer of TGMP. Women are struggling due to the distress generated be the crisis, he said. Many women found out about TGMP's microcredit program while they were looking to figure out how they could contribute to the household income, he added.
Asian Tigers Hold on Tight
The four so-called Asian Tigers, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, were strongly affected by the 1997 Asian financial crisis. The microcredit system proved highly effective in helping the Asian Tigers cope with the crisis.
The support provided by microcredit, founded by Bangladeshi economist Professor Muhammad Yunus, has proven to be quite effective in helping people climb back up the ladder to escape the financial crisis.
The increase in applications to get microcredit runs parallel to that trend, said Akgül. "If we had 10 million liras we would have distributed it in 33 cities within the next two to three months," he said. "However we are in a serious bottleneck. If we had money we would have opened branches in various cities," said Akgül. "We aim to have reached out to 100,000 women by 2010. We also aim to have provided loans worth 50 million liras by then."
 POS Machine used in TGMP
It did not take long for microcredit to spread across countries in Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, Europe and the Americas. In many countries, microcredit has helped impoverished people engage in self-employment projects that allow them to generate an income and a means to begin building wealth and eventually exit poverty.
Grameen Microcredit in Turkey
Filiz Aksoy is a businesswoman in Diyarbakir, who had taken a loan of 6,000 Liras from TGMP this year. Borrowers of TGMP utilize microcredit in about 70 different income generating activities.
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