Yunus spoke for 10 minutes at the Peace Prize Banquet and said he felt like he was in a dream and he had to pinch himself to see if it was real. He said it reminded him of another dream, the end of poverty. He said that some people dismiss the talk about ending poverty but you have to believe it can be done if we are to do it.
He then spoke about the 1997 Microcredit Summit. He said he was talking with journalists at the 1997 Summit about the 100 million poorest goal and the journalists said, “You don’t have the money, you don’t have the bank workers, you don’t have the infrastructure,” and they dismissed us.
Yunus said it would have been like me giving $27 to 42 people in 1976 and calling a press conference to announce that I would reach 3 million by 1997. The journalists would have said, “You’ve just reached 42 people. You couldn’t possibly reach 3 million by 1997,” and they would have dismissed that too. But we did it. You have to believe something can be done before you can hope of doing it.
Amen
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December 11th, 2006 at 1:39 am
Congratulations to Dr. Yunus and the Grameen folks for not listening to the naysayers! To give loans to the poor and illiterate women of the world, with no collateral and no training, speaks to faith in the goodness of humanity. As much as social networks are in vogue, Grameen is the best example of a real social network of folks who help each other build their businesses. And they don’t need the internet to do it!
Dennis