"Poverty is not created by poor people... Poverty is created by institutions that we build, policies that we pursue; concepts that we create." Mohammad Yunus created a concept to combat poverty - micro-credit - providing loans to the poor to whom the banks won't lend. And it works. Life recounts how taking out a loan revolutionised the lives of village women Jahanara, Bilkis, Nargis, Minara, Mageda and Shonda - not only increasing their incomes but also helping to improve their, and their children's, health.

Shilmundi is a village in south-eastern Bangladesh, very nearly the poorest and certainly the most densely populated country in the world. The inhabitants of Shilmundi live on the edge of poverty, for they are too poor to qualify for loans from the big banks in Bangladesh. But the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) will advance them money. Set up to fight the overwhelming poverty of the 1970s, it's now one of the largest lenders of micro-credit loans in the world. Three million village poor, virtually all women, take out loans of up to US$300 a year, and there's a ninety per cent repayment rate.

Jahanara, whose husband is a farmer, says: "Before the loan we were in trouble, now we are making progress." They first took a loan eight years ago, and have built a house with a latrine and a tube-well. Without the loan they couldn't have done it. Now she is the President of the village co-operative, set up by BRAC to manage the loans. The committee decides who should get the loans, and makes sure that they're repaid - and 98% are, according to BRAC.

Thirty-five women from the village take out loans every year. The idea is to develop work that'll generate income. People farm fish, keep cows for milk production, grow vegetables, raise poultry or buy rickshaws. Shonda grows silkworms, and BRAC helps her with that too. "The farming of silkworms happens three times a year. Then I return the silkworms to the office, then BRAC pays me a percentage of the money, and I'm doing all right and making enough money." Shonda is also one of over 30,000 volunteers trained by BRAC to recognise ten common illnesses. She acts as a community nurse come pharmacist.

BRAC's micro-credit schemes include preventive health care, and cover new sanitary latrines and clean water wells which are saving lives. Mageda says that there used to be a lot of illness because there were no proper latrines, and people drank the river water. "Now they have tube wells, they know how to keep clean and they boil the water, and store the water in jugs."

Another member, Minara, says: "I had no house, now we've built a house; we had no rickshaw, we used to rent one but it was so difficult, now we own a rickshaw and we don't have problems." Although the women pay 15% interest on their loans, this is much less than they would have to pay to loan sharks.

But micro-credit can't do everything - other elements are needed in poverty alleviation programmes - like jobs, education and family planning. Certainly, attitudes about family size have changed, now that women have some economic power. "No, no, no!" says Nargis. "No more children now, maybe in ten years time." And so have attitudes about girls' education: "I want my daughter to be educated. If she's lucky she can finish her final school exams," says Mafia. And Shonda adds: "If we had had these lessons before, about fifteen years ago, we could have led our lives in very modern way. If our parents could have sent us to school we could have improved."

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