A Poverty-Free World

From the preface to the Nobel Peace Prize winner's book, Bankerto the People

My experience working in the GrameenBank has given me faith; an unshakable faith in the creativity of humanbeings. It leads me to believe that humans are not born to suffer the misery ofhunger and poverty. They suffer now as they did in the past because we turn ourheads away from this issue.

I have come to believe, deeply and firmly, that we can createa poverty-free world if we want to. I came to this conclusion not as a productof a pious dream, but as a concrete result of experience gained in the work ofthe Grameen Bank.

It is not micro credit alone which will end poverty. Creditis one door through which people can escape from poverty. Many more doors andwindows can be created to facilitate an easy exit. It involves conceptualizingabout people differently, it involves designing a new institutional frame workconsistent with this new conceptualization.

Grameen has taught me two thing: first our knowledge baseabout people and their interactions is still very inadequate and, second, eachindividual person is very important. Each person has tremendous potential. Sheor he alone can influence the lives of others within the communities, nations,within and beyond her or his own time.

Each of us has much more hidden inside us than we have had achance to explore. Unless we create an environment that enables us to discoverthe limits of our potential, we will never know what we have inside of us.

But it is solely up to us to decide where we want to go. Weare the navigators and pilots of this planet. If we take our role seriously, wecan reach the destination we seek.

I want to tell thisstory because I want you to figure out what it means to you. If you find theGrameen story credible and appealing, I would like to invite you to join thosewho believe in the possibility of creating a poverty-free world and have decidedto work for it. You may be a revolutionary, a liberal or a conservative, you maybe young, or you may be old, but we can all work together on this one issue.

Think about It .