This June marked the completion of one year of Grameen Trust's BOT project in Turkey. The project, known as the Turkish Grameen Microcredit Project (TGMP), provides financial services to poor women, and was launched on 11 June 2003, in Diyarbakýr, in the south of Turkey to provide financial services to poor women. The Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan, disbursed the first loan.

The project was initiated with the support of the Turkish Foundation for Waste Reduction under the leadership of Professor Aziz Akgul, MP for Diyarbakir. The project receives lsignificant support from the office of the Governor of Diyarbakir.Three officers from Grameen with the help of local staff are implementing the project through two branches in Diyarbakir and Bismil.

Turkish borrower shows off the cow she bought with TGMP loan

One of TGMP's first loans was to Emine, a poor Kurdish woman with 16 children in a village called Elidolu, 10 km from Diyarbakir. She owns no land or home, and lives in a rented house in poor condition. The men in her family are day labourers. She borrowed 500,000,000 Turkish Lira (US$ 335) to buy a cow for selling milk. Throughout the year as a member, she has made her payments regularly. Other members like Emine are engaged in processing and production, agriculture, livestock, services, business and trade. At the end of June, TGMP had 720 members. The total loans disbursed amounted to is US$ 246,539 has been disbursed in total and the current loan outstanding is US$ 147,549.

The repayment rate has been a perfect 100%.

Report prepared by Lamiya Morshed