the grameen bank ("bank of the villages", in the bengali language) is the product of yunus' ideas. the bank began as a research project by yunus and the rural economics project at bangladesh's university of chittagong. they gave out some small loans and waited to know what would happen. in 1976, the village of jobra and other villages surrounding the university of chittagong became the first places where grameen bank loaned money to people. the bank was very successful and with support from the main bangladesh bank, gave loans for the tangail district (to the north of the capital, dhaka). the bank's success continued and it soon gave loans in many areas of bangladesh. on 2 october 1983, the project was made into an independent bank, by the bangladeshi government. bankers from shorebank, a community development bank in chicago, helped yunus by making grameen bank a part of shorebank with money from the ford foundation. after the 1998 flood of bangladesh, many people could not pay their debts to grameen for a few years. by the beginning of 2005, the bank had loaned over usd 4.7 billion to poor people.