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Can’t Be Done or Can Be Done? |
Written by Leslie Kane, Executive Vice President, Grameen America, Inc.
on Thursday, 04 February 2010
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It was great to attend the 2010 Sundance Film Festival last week, where I was able to hear real Stories of Change. I was particularly impressed by one of the panels called “Can’t be Done”.
Conventional wisdom says some problems just can’t be fixed because they are too entrenched to remedy. These problems include poverty, public education, global warming. But, after attending the “Can’t be done!” panel, I once again began to assure myself that conventional wisdom is not always right.
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Image from the Medal of Freedom Awards |
Written by Malorye Allison
on Friday, 28 August 2009
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Recipients of the Medal of Freedom, in addition to microfinance pioneer Dr. Muhammad Yunus, were:
Film star Sidney Poitier.
Civil rights icon the Rev. Joseph Lowery.
Tennis legend Billie Jean King.
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
Retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.. (He did not attend the ceremony and his daughter, Kara, accepted the award on his behalf.)
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Muhammad Yunus Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom: Live Webcast by the White House |
Written by Jenene Allison
on Wednesday, 12 August 2009
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Imagine driving downtown and there are no poor people pushing shopping carts full of their belongings. Watching a movie on TV and there are no ads asking you to donate a few dollars a month to support a hungry child. Reading that the Free and Reduced Lunch program in your public school district has been eliminated because poor students now get enough to eat at home. Imagine the end of poverty.
Professor Muhammed Yunus not only imagines it, he has spent the last 35 years working to make it happen. For his vision and his work, Muhammed Yunus will receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama today. He joins other distinguished agents of change like Desmond Tutu and Edward Kennedy who are being similarly honored with a Medal of Freedom for what the President calls “one overarching trait: each has been an agent of change. Each saw an imperfect world and set about improving it…”
The White House will be streaming the Presidential Medal of Freedom Awards Ceremony live today beginning 3:10 p.m. EDT. CNN will also be covering portions of the ceremony.
A professor of Economics at Chittagong University in Bangladesh, Yunus began working to end poverty when he started making very small loans out of his own pocket to impoverished women in 1974. He went on to become a global pioneer in the microcredit movement, establishing the Grameen (‘village’) Bank in 1983.
Today Grameen has more than 7.5 million borrowers, 65% of whom have successfully used the loans they received to start and run a small business as a means of working their way out of poverty. Grameen Bank is a global organization and recently launched a first U.S. branch in Queens, New York. Grameen America will continue to grow in the United States, providing the means to lift people out of poverty through small, low-interest, collateral-free loans. A branch in Omaha, Nebraska, is just being established, and there are plans for a branch in Boston, Massachusetts.
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Bill Introduced to Honor Yunus With Congressional Gold Medal |
Written by Jenene Allison
on Wednesday, 15 July 2009
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Muhammad Yunus’ work against poverty has caught the attention of the U.S. Congress, even in the midst of the recession, and in March a bill was introduced to honor him with a Congressional Gold Medal for his “contributions to the fight against global poverty." Yunus founded Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983. He and the bank were awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.
The proposed bill notes Yunus’ work on behalf of the poorest of the poor: “the more than 1,400,000,000 people, mostly women and children, who live on less than $1.25 a day, and the 2,600,000,000 people who live on less than $2 a day…” Microfinance is spreading all over the globe now. Grameen America has launched a branch in Queens, New York, and one in Omaha, Nebraska, with plans underway for another branch in Boston, Massachusetts.
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