Muhammad Yunus is Grameen founder . He was born on 28th June, 1940 in the village of Bathua , Chittagong, the business centre of what was then Eastern Bengal. He was the 3rd of 14 children of whom five died in infancy. His father was a successful goldsmith . He always encouraged his sons to seek higher education. But his biggest influence was Sufia Khatun – his mother , who always helped the poor people that knocked on their door. This inspired him to commit himself to eradication of poverty. His early childhood years were spent in the village. His family moved to the city of Chittagong, where his father had the jewelery business in 1947
In 1974, Professor Muhammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist from Chittagong University, led his students on a field trip to a poor village. They interviewed a woman who made bamboo stools, and knew that she had to borrow the equivalent of 15p to buy raw bamboo for each stool made. After repaying the middleman, sometimes at rates as high as 10% a week, she was left with a penny profit margin. Had she been able to borrow at more advantageous rates, she would have been able to amass an economic cushion and raise herself above subsistence leve