WEEK 5: SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 7

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 7

   Chapter 7 opens us to another agony endured by the poor which is the aspect of borrowing at a very high and exorbitant rate of interest which keeps them perpetually poor. The chapter equally examines the emergence of Micro finance Institutions (MFI) and their evaluation, the difficulty of lending to the poor, and how big businesses are being financed.

    The chapter opens with a range of poor women selling fruits and vegetables along the street which they borrowed from wholesalers in the morning to repay at night at a very high interest which makes their efforts less rewarding, thus keeping them constantly poor. For instance in Chennai (India), a woman borrowed vegetables worth of 1000 rupees in the morning and had to repay 1,046.9, which is equivalent to 4.69% interest per day. These excessively high rates had led to the emergence of MFI which tend to give loans to the poor at a very low interest rate in the name of Social Entrepreneurship. A good example is the case of Mohammed Yunus and Padmaja Reddy the CEO of Spandana. However we are told that despite the low interest rates, the poor tend to borrow less from these financial institutions caused by the rigidity and inflexibility of these financial institutions. For instance, before they can access funds they need to be in groups and that they should start repaying the loan just two weeks after they had been giving the loan. This has reduced the number of borrowers as those who don’t want to be in groups as well as those who were not ready to do early repayments usually stay away, thus making these institutions ineffective in lessening the poor’s situation.

    The high rates are due to a multiplicity of factors such as the high risks of defaults which is about 40%, the cost book keeping, the cost of monitoring the poor and the multiplier effects which result from the high rates as they tendency of default increases with high rates. Banks have a tendency of not lending the poor because of the lack of diligence and the time to monitor the poor, thus leaving them at the mercy of those exploitative money lenders. Larger firms face financial difficulties as they lack from who to borrow from. There is a normal graduation process where smaller business are financed by moneylenders and MFI and as they grow larger, they are being financed by Banks, but the problem lies in the fact that some businesses are bigger than moneylenders to finance and too small for banks.  

WEEK 5: COMMUNICATION- PUBLIC SPEAKING

 COMMUNICATION- PUBLIC SPEAKING

   Communication is the act of passing information from one person to another or from one entity to another. Public speaking on the other hand has to do with the transfer of information from one person to a group of audience. There are 4 major ways of communicating; speaking, writing, listening and reading. There are different types of communications namely; informatory (that is giving your audience an information), persuasive (where one tries to convince his audience to see his view points as the being important), entertainment (which is one of the most difficult type of communication as it deals with human psychology, that is trying to understand what makes them happy and it involves the use of humor.) and motivational communication (where the speaker tries to encourage people who are seemingly discourage to move on). Someone who is communicating is seen as the presenter and could be a dull, cool or hot presenter. The presenter can either use a manuscript, his brain, impromptu or extemporaneous methods of delivery when communicating.

    The following points are worth noting when communicating;

1.       Break your information into three; the introduction where the speaker builds enthusiasm and interest for himself, the topic and his credibility, the body where he analysis his agenda, and the conclusion where he will emphasize on the key points.

2.       Try to know the composition of your audience; whether they are your superiors, peers, team members or a mixture of all, their level of literacy, demography as well as their level of understanding, as it will help you better present your information.

3.       The type of avenue you will be presenting in, whether it is a classroom, a hall, conference, U-shaped, circle or chevron etc.

4.       Practice well and ensure that the visual aids you are using are functional

WEEK 4; TEAMBUILDING

TEAM-BUILDING & WORK

    Team building is the art of developing a cooperative and interactive spirit among people with a common goal or interest. Team building involves five stages which have different characteristics;

·         The forming stage which is the beginning of any team work and have feelings such as; excitement, optimism and anticipation as well as behaviors such as; identifying task, complains and abstract discussions.

·         The storming stage which is the second stage, compose of feelings as; resistance, chances for success and members personality. This stage has behaviors such as; tension and lack of unity, power struggle, arguing among members and setting unattainable goals.

·         The Norming stage is the third stage where the team becomes more stable and focus with feelings such as; acceptance into the group and constructive criticism. It has behaviors ranging from personal discussions, cohesion and realistic group parameters.

·         The performing stage where the group reaches its full potentials and sets out to present its actions. This stage is composed of feelings such as satisfaction towards the group’s progress and insightful towards others, with behaviors as conflict management and teamwork.

·         The last stage of team building is the adjourning stage where the team members tend towards the future with satisfaction, hoping to meet again.

 A team is different from a group in the following ways; stronger sense of identification, common goals or task, interdependence and more specialized and differentiated roles.

WEEK 4. POVERTY

Feedback of chapter 6.

Chapter 6 brings to us a picture of the hazards of being poor. The life of the poor according to the book revolves around risks. The poor bear enormous risks in every means of survival they undertake such as business risk where a fall in demand will affect them severely since their businesses are small, they face agricultural risks where a crop failure and falling agricultural prices can bring about misery to them as it is their only source of income, health hazards and political violence tend to affect them more than any other social class. Also in this chapter, the poor have no insurance companies to alleviate their situation and even where they are available, the poor rarely use them due to outright fraud, high premiums lack of credibility and adverse selection that characterize these insurance companies.

In view of these risks and lack of insurance against them, the poor are therefore advised to use the following measures to cope with their situation; they should diversify their activities, they should undergo temporary migration as well as being creative in their ways.

POVERTY

Poverty is a general state of scarcity or the lack of a certain financial or material possession that can sustain one. Poverty can also be seen as a state of financial or material inadequacy, where one is unable to attain his basic needs.

    According to the UN, poverty is fundamentally the inability of getting choices and opportunities, the violation of human dignity, lack of schools, hospitals, insecurity, powerlessness and expulsion, lack of land to cultivate on, living in marginal and fragile land without access to clean water.

    Going by the World Bank definition, poverty is a pronounced deprivation of well being and its takes many dimensions such as low incomes and inability to get basic goods and service to live in dignity, low levels of health and education, lack of access to clean water as well as insufficient opportunity to better one's life.

TED TALKS ON POVERTY

      After examining what poverty is and its effects on the human race, we are all called to action to eradicate poverty and Esther Duflo provides us with a “Social Experiment to Fight Poverty.” In this experiment, she encourages us to do our best to help the poor and avoid the Haiti quake after every 8 days. She provides us with a small experiment of breaking the whole procedure into smaller manageable sizes that we can easily shoulder. For more information, watch her video
         Another person who provides with a way out of poverty is Bunker Roy- Learning From a Barefoot movement. He comes from a wealthy family, he had a bright future of becoming an  influential man in the society, but he ignored all this because he had empathy for the poor. This serves as an example for us, we can become great even by trying to help the needy and not pursuing the big post in the society. 

WEEK 3: POOR ECONOMIES

                   FEED BACK OF CHAPTER 5                                                                                                      The first thing that struck my mind after reading chapter five is the issue of "Sterilization Camps." .This policy that was introduced by Sanjay Gandhi where people were sterilized forcefully is disheartening and against the natural laws of the almighty as well as the basic human rights and freedoms of people. It is true that large and explosive population situations have imminent danger and pose a societal issue, but the manner in which Sanjay Gandhi stepped in to curb this population explosion was rather inhuman. This is so because it was made mandatory to the point that government officials were threatened with salary cuts and suspension as well as physical arrest of people. Gandhi should have devised alternative measures of reducing the population such as education which works better than force, after all the developed countries who were one time faced with this situation didn't resort to this barbaric measures. This policy should not be adopted in Nigeria despite the population explosion, I think other measures such as education, and the use of contraceptives should be applied

Another striking aspect of chapter five is the issue of the article titled "The Gift Of The Dying". I cannot understand how a normal human being will see a misfortune of the like as the case of HIV/AIDS in Africa in general and South Africa in particular as a blessing. This an epidermic that has ruined Africa's economy and brought it to a halt, as more resources are directed towards the treatment of the affected people who cannot afford it due to poverty. Large populations should not be seen as a hindrance to economic development but rather as a stimulus which completely ties with Boserup's theory of "Necessity is the Mother Of Invention." China is a good example where this theory works best. It should be noted that the "disaster point" as proposed by Robert Malthus has never been experienced as he predicted after more than three centuries


Finally the discrimination meted out to girls is another issue of concern. As far as I am concerned is that one's children remain his children despite the gender. The issue of destiny come into play here in that if our children were not meant to take care of us when we are old, it will turn out to be so even if we discriminate or not. A girl child can grow up to take care of the family just as the male child, if she is given the chance to do so, she can even extend out of the family to the community and national as well as international level, this can be exemplified by case of the German Chancellor-Angela Merkel, Dilma Rousef of Brazil as well as the president of Liberia who are all females playing the role of men. What would have become of Brazil, Germany and Liberia if these people were discriminated upon. After all it is by these girls that we men discriminate against that are at the origin of our existence. So therefore gender inequality should have a place in Nigeria

I suggest that couples should have smaller families. This is so because with a small family size, the couples will spend less on education and other requirements of their small family, consequently with a reduced expenditure, they will be able to save and invest in sustainable assets which will finance their old age, thereby replacing the pension program which is absent in Nigeria

ADVANTAGES OF A SMALL FAMILY

> Children from small families have opportunities of better education. They are often enrolled in standard and up-to-date schools
>Less expenses are associated with small family sizes which gives opportunity for investment
>Small family sizes have high living standards due to reduced expenditure and an increase in savings

DISADVANTAGES OF A SMALL FAMILY

>Children from small are "spoiled" as they are being provided with everything they need, giving them the impression that life is an easing-going thing, thus they lazy about and perform poorly in school
>Also,small families lack initiatives as they are not pushed to the wall. People in big families tend to seek solutions every where which in turn brings development to the society as a whole

ADVANTAGES OF A LARGE FAMILY

Big families have a large labor force which is good for the family in particular and the economy as a whole. Also a large family develops a cooperative spirit which is good for community development. In addition, as the saying goes "necessity is the mother of invention" (Esther Boserup), where many people are involved, they will seek ways of increasing their sustainability which brings development

DISADVANTAGES OF LARGE FAMILIES

Poor or inadequate education of children, limited social facilities, unnecessary and an unhealthy competition among family members for wealth and inheritance, very high expenditure. Children are not well brought up,  they often become worthless loafers

WEEK 2: TED TALK

HOW I HARNESSED THE WIND :WILLIAM KWAMKWAMBA.

The story is all about a young boy from Malawi who grew up in a society of socially disadvantaged people who could not even afford a decent meal a day. The family could not send him to school but this young boy had so much passion for science despite the financial situation, so he decided to overcome this financial disability and persue his dreams by reading science textbooks(specifically, physics textbooks). From the knowledge he assimilated from the textbooks, he realised that he could make a windmill that could generate water and electricity for his household. So he set out towards the realisation of his dream by puting the necessary materials and equipment together.This was the most difficult moments for him as he was very much criticized even by his own mother who saw him as being insane. As determined as he was, he surmounted all these obstacles and realised a windmill which provided water and electricity for his house and the whole community benefited from it .Due to his strong will power, he realized his dreams despite financial obstacles he faced.

http://www.ted.com

WEEK 2: TED TALKS

. THE DANGER OF A SINGLE STORY BY; CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE.
Ngozi Achidie is a Nigerian who grew up in a University campus in Eastern Nigeria, her father was a lecturer and her mother was an administrator. According to her, a single story occurs when a story is told of a people by concentrating only on the negative aspects of their history and not the positive side, on their failures, not on their success, on what they cannot do, not on what they can do. These stories according to her tend to affect us in our childhood if same stories are being circulated as we may grow up with the same mentality, seeing things the negative way without making allusion to the positive aspects, which is the danger of a single story. For instance, when Africa is being referred of, it is often seen as the land of darkness, misfortune harboring unfortunate beasts, poor by nature, fighting senseless wars, people who were meant to be exploited and dominated, people without a right of their own. She then proceed by letting us know that, every society has both positive and negatives aspects of their history and that banking on the negative ones will lead us to doom, but focusing on the positive ones will bring about improvements, changes in who we are and a general progress in our lives, just as she experienced “A Mental Shift” after reading Achebe’s novels, we too can do that.

WEEK 1: INTRODUCTION

My name is MAS'OUDOU BAKARI, am  from Nigeria and I am a good fan of standard education, so I chose A.U.N as my  choice of university. Am reading Economics as my major but I have so much interest in community development, so I am offering a course  which I believe will bring me closer to my ambitions of being an asset to the society, giving it the best it deserve, called community development 102, in short C.D,V. However I will be sharing all my experiences with you all, so CHECK OUT!!!!!!!