This month in Oxford we got invited to meet Dr. Muhammad Yunus. We heard him speak in the famous Sheldonian theater in Oxford on Poverty and Social Business. He was a Nobel Peace Prize winner. But beyond the fame he is a humble man that loves the poor. Muhammad Yunus has often said, "Humans are not born to suffer the misery of hunger and poverty; they suffer now as they did in the past because we turn our heads away from this issue." Professor Muhammad Yunus established the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983, fueled by the belief that credit is a fundamental human right. His objective was to help poor people escape from poverty by providing loans on terms suitable to them and by teaching them a few sound financial principles so they could help themselves.
From Dr. Yunus' personal loan of small amounts of money to destitute basketweavers in Bangladesh in the mid-70s, the Grameen Bank has advanced to the forefront of a burgeoning world movement toward eradicating poverty through microlending. Replicas of the Grameen Bank model operate in more than 100 countries worldwide.
Us & Muhammad
