Dhaka (AsiaNews) - Starting small businesses, paying for college, buying a house or paying for costly medical treatments. These are just a few of the projects carried out by thousands of Christians in Bangladesh with the help of the Christian Co-operative Credit Union Ltd. (CCCU) of Dhaka, the first Christian microcredit agency in the country. July 3 marked the 58th anniversary of its foundation, and more than 200 people attended a memorial Mass, celebrated in the Church of the Holy Rosary in the capital.
"Asking the CCCU for a loan changed my life", James Biswas told AsiaNews. The young man, 22, lost his job two years ago. "I took 20,000 taka (6) and I opened a small fruit and vegetable shop". Thanks to a loan from the Christian bank, he managed to reinvest 100,000 taka (US ,282) in his business. Now he earns 15,000 taka (2) a month.
Like James, about 50,000 people have made recourse to the CCCU for a loan, while 162,000 have chosen to use the bank to deposit their savings. "We're happy," said Ignatius Hemanta Corraya, vice-President of the company, "to see that so many people have improved their lives with our help."
The CCCU was founded 58 years ago by an American priest of the Holy Cross, Fr. Charles J. Young. At the time, the Christian community of Dhaka was going through a deep financial crisis and to resolve it, Christians requested loans from local lenders, who granted them at extremely high interest rates. So Fr. Charles and other volunteers at the Holy Cross decided to create their own society, the Christian Co-operative Credit Union Ltd.