Dr. Muhammad Yunus

International Women’s Day, held annually on March 8, could not have been a more perfect time for Dr. Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace laureate, to present his keynote address at the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize Forum hosted by Concordia College.  Yunus began his address by discussing the vital role women play in society and the emphasis Grameen Bank, also a 2006 Nobel laureate, and social business he founded over 30 years ago, places on empowering the primarily Muslim women who vocally resist help and say due to Islamic law, they aren’t capable of work or travel outside of the home.

“This is not her voice. This is the voice of the history that has gone over her. Years and years of history of neglect and indifference,” Yunus said.

Grameen Bank seeks out women in poverty, tells them how to apply for the Bank’s micro-loans, and encourages them to become entrepreneurs. Yunus has found that when money is given to women, more of it is spent on the family than if given to the men in the household. Increased income in the family allows more children to attend school and the family has a chance to propel themselves out of poverty.

“Poverty is a repetitive cycle of the same life. You never get off that cycle,” Yunus said. “Poverty is not in the person, it is created by something external, artificially imposed on the person. Poverty is created by the systems that we built, the institutions, the policies, the concepts (we create).”
According to Yunus, the potential of all individuals must be realized for poverty to be eradicated.

“If (a mother’s) daughter can become a doctor because she got an opportunity to go to school, her mother could have been a doctor, too. There is nothing wrong with her mother. But she’s an illiterate woman, she never had an opportunity to go to school,” Yunus said.
Essentially Yunus’ faith in the Grameen borrowers enables them to empower themselves. His message at the forum was simple yet profound; anyone is capable of initiating a plan to alleviate poverty or change the world. The key is to start small and think big.

“It doesn’t have to be something that shakes the whole world right away. It always comes in a bite size. Just a simple little thing, but it may have the seed of something big,” Yunus said.

More than 30 years ago Yunus took a chance and lent $27 to 42 people. This action led to the subsequent development of the Grameen Bank which currently has 7.5 million borrowers in Bangladesh. Yunus thinks that with the current rate of poverty alleviation, Bangladesh can be poverty free in 2030, satisfying one of the Millenium Development Goals. Until that point, the banker for the poor will continue to concentrate on one borrower at a time.

“It’s your task to make sure she builds confidence gradually, so that one day she will say ‘let me try,’” Yunus tells his employees. “That’s the day we are working for.”