We hear from a for­mer Nobel Peace Prize win­ner today from a lit­tle Q and A from Time Mag­a­zine.

Muham­mad Yunus won the award for start­ing the prac­tice of micro­cre­dit, small loans to peo­ple who do not have col­lat­eral. Yunus began the prac­tice in Bangladesh because poor peo­ple there only had access to credit through loan sharks who would charge out­ra­geous interest.

Our snip­pet con­tains 4 out of the 10 ques­tions that Time read­ers gave to Yunus.

Do you think it is eth­i­cal to charge the poor inter­est and make a profit out of it?

Hasan Iqbal

SUNDSVALL, SWEDEN

In Bangladesh, Grameen Bank charges the low­est rate among all micro­cre­dit pro­grams, and yes, we make a profit. But Grameen Bank is owned by the bor­row­ers, so when we make a profit, it goes back to the bor­row­ers as dividends.

Are microloans tak­ing a hit because of the recession?

Katie Mal­one

POINT MARION, PA.

We use very local money that is going to the local poor, so there is no way the hit taken by the finan­cial cen­ters of the world could be trans­mit­ted to us. We don’t see fluc­tu­a­tions in repay­ment rates or any­thing like that. We are O.K.

How would you help the world out of recession?

Azmath Sham­rad

NEWCASTLE, ENGLAND

The sys­tem failed us. There’s no rea­son why we should resus­ci­tate it. We have to make absolutely sure that we don’t go back to the same old nor­malcy. We should be cre­at­ing a new nor­malcy. That oppor­tu­nity has to be taken.

Micro­fi­nanc­ing empow­ers Bangladeshi women. Is it dri­ving cul­tural change?

Lucas Tor­rin, OTTAWA

The most dra­matic thing that has hap­pened in Bangladesh in the past 25 years is the total change in the sta­tus of women. Micro­cre­dit has played a very impor­tant role in that, par­tic­u­larly with poor women.

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