Illustration Friday – Magnify

 

Morning Catch

 

“There are cultural issues everywhere - in Bangladesh, Latin America, Africa, wherever you go. But somehow when we talk about cultural differences, we magnify those differences.”

~ Muhammad Yunus ~ 

My kind of hero!

Muhammad Yunus is the Bangladeshi economist who won the 2006 Nobel Prize for pioneering a new category of banking known as micro-credit, which grants small loans to poor people who have no collateral and who don’t qualify for conventional bank loans. The programme has enabled millions of Bangladeshis, almost all women, to buy everything from cows to cell phones in order to start and run their own businesses. Similar micro-credit projects have helped millions around the world lift themselves out of poverty.

In the prize announcement The Norwegian Nobel Committee speaker said:

“Muhammad Yunus has shown himself to be a leader who has managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh, but also in many other countries. Loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea. From modest beginnings three decades ago, Yunus has, first and foremost through Grameen Bank, developed micro-credit into an ever more important instrument in the struggle against poverty.”

After receiving the news of his award, Yunus announced that he would use part of the $1.4 million prize money to create a company to make low-cost, high-nutrition food for the poor; while the rest would go toward setting up an eye hospital for the poor in Bangladesh.

Just like our friend, Dr. Maithri, here is another builder of bridges, don’t you agree?