Muhammed Yunus,
Nobel Peace prize Winner
Muhammed Yunus, often called
“the world’s banker to the poor,” received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his pioneering work
against poverty. Yunus said he would use the $ 1.35 million prize money to
“find more innovative ways” to help the poor. Yunus
founded the Grameen Bank in 1976 with just $27 from this own pucket. the idea came to him while he was teaching
economics at Chittagong University in
southern
Bangladesh, which is one of the poorest nations in the world. He and his students started an experimental project: They
lent poor women small amounts of money. The women used the money to their own
small businesses, for example, to
buy straw to
make stools. Until then, the local women relied on local money lenders who charged them
high interest rates.
Since then, the Grameen Bank model has been duplicated in more than 100
countries. Today, the bank has
6.61 million borrowers and over 2,400 branches in over 80,000 villages
in Bangladesh. Recently the bank started a program to give beggars lives of
credit of about $9 to purchase small times such as bread, candy, pickles, and
toys. Receivers of the loans then resell the goods to supplement their begging.
The bank reports that it has lent $6.55 billion over the past 30 years and
claims a high repayment rate-98 percent. Nowadays Grameen Banks are also in
developed counties. One hundred women in Queen, New York, were among the first
borrowers of Grameen America. The total number of borrowers worldwide is 7.84
million 97 percent of whom are women.
Sabine Werth, Social
Worker
Hunger is
usually associated with developing countries, and not with places like Germany.
However, even in a wealthy country like Germany, there are many who live in
desperation. At the same time, the country wastes approximately 20 percent of
all its foodstuffs. Bread that was baked the previous day, dairy products that
are about to expire, and fruit and vegetables with small blemishes are normally
taken off supermarket shelves and thrown away. This happens even though the
food is in perfectly good condition for consumption.
Social worker
Sabine Werth saw this waste and started the Berliner Tate (Table) organization
in 1993, in order to give the food to those who needed it. The problem was
collecting all the food, which also included “remains” from parties and
buffets, and distributing it to needy men, women, and children. Sabine
organized groups of voluteers with ars and vans to do this work. At first, the
Berliner Tafel provided food only for homeless people, but mowadays anybody in
need can pick up a bag of groceries for a low price-the symbolic price of one
euro. Today, Berliner Tafel feeds up to 15,000 needy people a day, and there
are approximately 800 food banks all over Germany.
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