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Muhammad Yunus commemorative stamps

3 September 2007 at 10:32 am | Posted in Grameen Bank, Microcredit, Muhammad Yunus, News, Nobel Peace Prize, Poverty, Sydney Peace Prize | Leave a comment

Bangladesh has released a commemorative stamp to honour Professor Muhammad Yunus’ Nobel Prize win.
The stamp featuring the inaugural 1998 Sydney Peace Prize winner was launched by Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed last Wednesday.

Yunus in Singapore

16 August 2007 at 9:51 am | Posted in Grameen Bank, Microcredit, Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize, Sydney Peace Prize | Leave a comment

At a public lecture organised by the Singapore Institute of Policy Studies, the inauguaral Sydney Peace Prize recipient Professor Muhammad Yunus, said there is no reason why microcredit cannot happen in Singapore.

Even in an economically advanced city like Singapore, microcredit can succeed. He recounted examples of Amercian cities such as Chicago, New York and Texas that adopted the microcredit system.

IPS chairman Professor Tommy Koh announced at the end of the lecture that the institute would convene a brainstorming session with those keen on starting a Grameen-type initiative in city-state.

Yunus: give aid directly to the people who need it

12 July 2007 at 11:59 am | Posted in Grameen Bank, Microcredit, Muhammad Yunus, News, Nobel Peace Prize, Poverty, Sydney Peace Prize | Leave a comment

Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus has called on Japan to expand its ODA (overseas development assistance) to include social businesses, Bloomberg reported.

Yunus, the inaugual Sydney Peace Prize in 1998, said the traditional ODA which depends on government-owned infrastructure projects to stimulate economic growth is “a very roundabout way” of reducing poverty. To do that effectively, “It should be the government to the people of the country wherever you are sending money,” he said.

Yunus added that Japan and other countries who contribute to overseas aid should consider extending the aid to projects that local people can run as their own businesses and expand on their own.

He said: “Asia is in good shape right now…The thing is, can you get poverty down to zero level? Poverty doesn’t belong in a civilized society.”

Yunus: one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time

2 July 2007 at 10:13 am | Posted in Microcredit, Muhammad Yunus, News, Sydney Peace Prize | Leave a comment

Professor Muhammad Yunus has been chosen by American magazine, BusinessWeek, as one of the 30 greatest entrepreneurs of all time.

The criteria for making to the list include the vision to create new markets or tap into underserved markets, and in the process, changing the way people. It takes more than wealth to make it to the list, according to the article.

Yunus’ poverty-alleviating microcredit banking system was credited for changing the world.

Click here for the full list of BusinessWeek’s list of greatest entrepreneurs of all time.

Eliminating poverty through music

16 May 2007 at 6:49 pm | Posted in Grameen Bank, Microcredit, Muhammad Yunus, News, Nobel Peace Prize, Sydney Peace Prize | Leave a comment

Inaugural Sydney Peace Prize recipient Professor Muhammad Yunus has teamed up with music duo The Green Children to release a music video.

The video for the song, titled Hear Me Now, was inspired by Yunus and shot in Bangladesh in late 2006. The song tells the story of the Grameen Bank and features Yunus.

The Green Children have pledged the proceeds from the sale of their first album and all funds raised through related activities to the construction of an eye hospital in Bangladesh through the Green Children Foundation.

Yunus is partnering the Foundation for microcredit, healthcare and education projects in Bangladesh.

Make poverty history

11 May 2007 at 2:24 pm | Posted in Microcredit, Muhammad Yunus, News, Poverty, Sydney Peace Prize | Leave a comment

Photo: Neil Brake/Vanderbilt University

Professor Muhammad Yunus has received the second Nichols-Chancellor’s Medal and an accompanying prize of $100,000 from Vanderbilt University, in Nashville.

Yunus, the inaugural Sydney Peace Prize recipient in 1998 and 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, received the award on Thursday. Yunus is a Vanderbilt alumnus, having graduated with a master’s and doctorate degree from the University’s Economics Department.

Speaking to graduating seniors, Yunus told Vanderbilt students to make poverty history. He said there is nothing wrong with poor people and that poverty is not created by the poor, but by “the system that we built”.

“The seeds of poverty are in the broader vein, not in the persons…poverty is imposed on some people artificially,” he said. To change that, institutions and policies have to be changed.

“It is our job, your job, to change the way you want it to be. If you don’t want to change it, it will never get changed. So it is our job to create the world that we want to live in and feel tall, feel that we have succeeded in creating the world that we would like to have, and that is the world where I feel nobody should be a poor person in that world,” he told the graduants.

Listen or watch Yunus’ speech.