Concomitantly, microcredit receives hails and condemnation because of its complex facets in the developmentDevelopment discourse. However, its role in reducing povertyPoverty and ensuring women empowermentWomen’s empowerment from the downtrodden has often been appreciated. Criticisms such as high-interest rates, forcible collection of instalments, pushing the poor into a debt cycle and exploiting the poor by transferring their capital to multinational financial corporations are well known. The study shows an alternative microcredit approachMicrocredit approach different from those of leading MFIsMicrofinance Institutions (MFIs) since 2000 for poverty alleviationPoverty alleviation and women empowermentWomen’s empowerment. Pathgudam Duldul Camp Landless Cooperative Society (PDCLCS)Pathgudam Duldul Camp Landless Cooperative Society (PDCLCS) has been successfully operating a microcredit programMicrocredit programs in a slumSlums located in the Mymensingh district with almost 100 per cent credit recovery without forcible collection of instalments. Slum dwellersSlum dwellers seem to have benefited from the microcredit programMicrocredit programs of PDCLCSPathgudam Duldul Camp Landless Cooperative Society (PDCLCS) adopting a community developmentDevelopment approach. The study follows in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and key informants’ interviews to explore the facts of success. The findings show that the slum dwellersSlum dwellers feel confident about paying their instalments as they own their capital through a cooperative system managed and operated by themselves, which other NGOsNon-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) generally do not practice. Moreover, the practice of democratic norms, quick response to the crisis of slum dwellersSlum dwellers, and borrowersBorrowers’ socioeconomic developmentSocioeconomic development and empowermentEmpowerment have triggered the success of an alternative microcredit programMicrocredit programs. Instead of the neoliberalNeoliberal practice of traditionalTraditional microcredit programsMicrocredit programs, the community-owned capital approach of PDCLCSPathgudam Duldul Camp Landless Cooperative Society (PDCLCS) could be an alternative, aiming at ensuring the socioeconomic developmentSocioeconomic development of the downtrodden.