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Muhammad Yunus was born in 1940 in Chittagong, the business centre of what was then Eastern Bengal. He was the third of 14 children, of whom five died in infancy. Educated in Chittagong, he was awarded a scholarship, gained a Ph.D and in 1972 became head of Chittagong University’s Economics Department. But it was his mother, Sofia Khatun, who had always helped any poor person who came knocking on their door, that he cited as being among his biggest influences. In his website report, Muhammad Yunus writes how today’s society views poor people as human ‘bonsais’. If a healthy seed of a giant tree is planted in a tiny flowerpot, he explains, then the tree that grows will be miniaturised, not through fault of the seed but because it has been denied a bigger landscape to grow in. In the same way, people are poor because society denies them a proper social and economic base in which to blossom. The way to solve this, he says, is to move the poor out of the ‘flowerpot’ and into the real soil of society. Grameen Bank believes that financial credit should be accepted as a human right. It has, therefore, built on a system where those who possess nothing are considered the most suitable candidates for borrowing – the opposite to how other conventional banks work. This alternative system recognises that all human beings, including the poorest, are endowed with endless potential and it is this potential that is assessed prior to a loan agreement, as opposed to a recipient’s assets or their material possessions. “The basic principle,” said Muhammad Yunus in an interview with Asia Source, “is that the people should not have to come to the bank but the bank should go to the people.” The system has so far proved to be a huge success and today the bank operates in 40,000 villages, lending money to over 2 million borrowers for many different income-generating, self-employment ventures. “Professor Yunus is an extraordinary visionary whose unshakeable belief in the power of people to help themselves escape poverty has become a rallying call across the globe,” says Alex Counts, President of the Grameen Foundation. “His dream to put poverty in a museum where it belongs, continues to be an inspiration to me and to countless others.” Muhammad Yunus is no stranger to awards and when he was recently asked by The Telegraph to describe his feelings about being given the Nobel Prize, he said: “This is the last prize. That’s what is so special about it... It’s the sky!” He and Grameen Bank will share the Nobel Prize money as well as receiving a gold medal and diploma. “Lasting peace can never be achieved until large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Micro-credit is one such means,” the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee said, explaining their reasons for choosing this year’s winner. Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations, himself a Nobel Peace Laureate, hailed Muhammad Yunus and the Bank as: “long-standing allies of the UN in the cause of development and empowerment of women.” Other Nobel contenders include the Chinese dissident, Rebiya Kadeer, who has fought for the rights of the Uighur Muslims in China and Chechen human rights lawyer, Lydia Yusupova. The Award Ceremony will be taking place at Oslo City Hall, in Norway, this December. Contact: By Sarah Wilkinson This is one of many stories available from Positive News newspaper. For more stories like this please visit: www.positivenews.org.uk (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.) |
The
Grameen Bank of Bangladesh and its founder have been jointly awarded the
2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Created in 1976 by Professor Muhammad Yunus,
with just £15 from his own pocket, the bank makes loans to farmers,
fishermen, artisans and other poor people without demanding collateral.
It now serves more than 6 million families across four continents, 97
per cent of whom are women, with loans, savings accounts, insurance,
information support and other services, enabling them to set up their
own self-sustaining businesses and thus escape the hardships of poverty.