Microfinance and The Grameen Bank - Revolution in the Aid World

To put things into perspective, microfinance has simply revolutionized the development world. The reason is that it has proved that with really small amounts of money, truly big results could be achieved. Yet, even this is not the major benefit of microfinance. As Muhammad Yunus, the inventor of microfinance, says:

"[Microcredit] lets individuals explore their own creative potential […] Microcredit turns on the economic engines among the rejected population of society. Once a large number of these tiny engines start working, the stage is set for big things.”

Indeed, Muhammad Yunus set the stage for big things: in 1983 he founded The Grameen (“grameen” means “rural” or “village” in Bangla language) Bank in Bangladesh that gave microloans for small business development to the country’s poorest and neediest, the ones who were rejected by the formal economy. In 20 years the bank became a self-sustaining social business. Even more so, The Grameen Bank has grown and spread out to become The Grameen Family of Businesses that include 25 for-profit, non-profit and social business enterprises, all of which aimed to alleviate poverty in bangladesh and worldwide. In 2007 80% of poor Bangladeshis were reached out with microcredit (with the help of other microcredit NGOs.) By 2012, Yunus projects, 100% of poor Bangladeshi families will be able to obtain microloans.

Of course, such success has been picked up by other bright minds, especially after the enterprise got a worldwide recognition in 2006, when Muhammad Yunus and The Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Nowadays there are thousands of local and international nonprofits specializing in microcredit and its various forms. The true beauty and potential of microfinance is that it can be tailored to specific needs of any given community or a country.

In my next post I will list grassroots and international microcredit NGOs that proved to be the most effective and create real change on the ground, so that

“Our Grandchildren will have to go to museums to see poverty," Muhammad Yunus.

P.S. To learn more about The Grameen Bank and Muhammad Yunus' philosophy and approach to combating global poverty check out his books:

Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty; Public Affairs; 2003; ISBN 9781586481988
A World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism; Public Affairs; 2008; ISBN 9781586484934

I am reading the latter one and it's full of 30 years of experience, great ideas, and inspiration!

Girls' Education: Successful Grassroots Campaigns

Before I start listing NGOs that are promoting the cause of women's education, I should note that the programs that all these nonprofits support almost always transcend the formal educational process, addressing other women's needs and problems as well. These issues include sex trafficking, female genital cutting, maternal health & family planning, economic empowerment, AIDS/HIV prevention, and women's rights. The reason is that, as many of these problems have cultural roots, education turned out to be the key element in resolving all of them.

For example, one of the most effective ways of preventing girls from being sex trafficked is to keep them in school. Two great ways to achieve this is building schools in rural areas and "bribing" parents for the perfect school attendance of their daughters. Rural School Projects have been implemented around the world. In Cambodia, for example, where many girls end up being trafficked to brothels in Thailand, Rural School Project is supported by American Assistance for Cambodia/Japan Relief for Cambodia (AAfC). The project has built 470 schools all around the country. Donors pay $13,000 and the funds are matched by World Bank and Asian Development Bank; after the schools (with the donors' name on it!) are constructed donors are encouraged to support students by funding improvements for their school, such as computers, Internet access, a water well, or a vegetable garden.

While it is clear that not everybody can afford donating $13,000, this sum is very achievable if the ones who care unite their forces! One of the schools in Cambodia, for example, was fully funded by the Overlake School in America, whose students not only funded the school, but also visited and established life-long relationships with their Cambodian counterparts. Think about how easy and enriching it would be for (a) collegiate student organization(s) to raise this money! The importance of having a school in a village simply cannot be overstated, because a school is the only opportunity that these rural girls have for changing their lives for the better.

American Assistance to Cambodia has established another program, Girls Be Ambitious, that provides families with $10/month if their daughters have perfect school attendance. The logic behind this is that girls in poor rural communities usually have to abandon education and help their family survive by taking jobs far from home or even abroad, often ending up as sex slaves. This way, for $120/month you can fight sex trafficking and save one girls' life.

Tostan is another successful grassroots campaign that concentrates on education, but whose main objective is to stop female genital cutting and promote women's human rights. Cultural awareness of the founder and leadership of African women helped Tostan achieve what no international or governmental organization managed to do- create cultural acceptance of the notion that female genital cutting is damaging for women's health and that an "uncut" woman is no worse and deserves to be married as any woman who has been cut. Tostan was launched in Senegal in 1991 and slowly but surely achieved such results- 2600 villages announced that they had ceased cutting between 2002-2006 - that Senegalese government itself decided to adopt Tostan's approach on the national level. Now Tostan is trying to establish itself in Somalia, Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia, and Central African Republic.

The last two NGOs that I would like to note are:

Afghan Institute of Learning managed to hold classes for girls and boys even during Taliban regime (!) and now provides education, vocational training, and medical help for 350,000 women and children around the country.

CAMFED is a nonprofit that supports girls' education in Africa. Started by a Welsh woman, striving to help girls in Zimbabwe, it now helps girls and boys attend and stay in school, get college scholarships, learn basic economic skills, and start small businesses. Since 1993 Camfed improved the school environment for 1,065,710 children in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Ghana. (The picture is CAMFED's "get involved" banner, so I suppose I can use it here.)

As usual most of the information, inspiration, and knowledge I found in "Half The Sky." Let me know, if you would like me to list more similar organizations or maybe NGOs working in specific countries or for a different cause. In my next post I will concentrate on microfinance and how it changes lives all around the developing world.

Girls and Education-Why Do They Matter?

If you were asked what was the driving force of human civilization from its dawn up until now, what would you answer? I would say-with no hesitation-that it was education. After all, it has all began with the drive for knowledge and discovery that separated hominids from the rest of apes, and led to the "pinnacle of evolution"-Homo sapiens sapiens. Think about it, how essential literacy and education have been to the development of the whole human civilization, how much they defined the status of a person in almost any given society! Historically the ones who possessed knowledge and knew how to read and write have been the elite. For many centuries this elite was very small and very rich, while the absolute majority of people lived in the darkness of ignorance, unable to help themselves and trapped in the cycle of poverty.

Things first changed with the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg: suddenly anyone could learn how to read and write. That was a scary change for the upper-class that then consisted mainly of monarchy, feudals, and clergy, who literally were telling people what to think and what to believe. For the ordinary men, on the other hand, the invention of the printing press was the biggest breakthrough there has ever been, (until the invention of Internet maybe.) From then on nobody could dictate rules and oppress people without facing resistance, because, as they learnt how to read and write, people started to form their own opinions and learnt how to defend themselves. No doubt that industrial revolution-that led to the age of prosperity in the West- would have never been possible without Johannes Gutenberg and his ingenious invention.

Now, think about that: today 785 million people, age 15 and up, across the globe do not know how to read or write, 2/3 of them are girls (The UN). What it means is that, despite all the progress that humanity has achieved, these people are still trapped in the cycle of poverty and are deprived of tools for changing their lives. The reason is that education is empowerment, especially for uneducated girls who have no voice or rights in their communities. A typical life of such girl consists of getting married in early teens, doing house work, getting beaten and oppressed by her husband and his family and having babies, 2, 3, 4, 7...until she dies during childbirth or from an "honor killing" or from being killed simply because she cannot bear a son. In developing countries male children are traditionally given special treatment: they are the ones who are taken to a doctor when they are sick, they are the ones sent to school, while girls lack all these "privileges."
At the same time, investment in girls' education has been proven to be the most effective tool in achieving higher standards of living and economic development in general. The World Bank affirms that "there is no investment more effective for achieving development goals than educating girls." One African proverb says:

"You educate a boy, and you educate and individual. You educate a girl, and you're educating an entire village."

Why is that so? The fact is that educated and empowered girls for the first time in their lives have the door of opportunities open in front of them. After they learn that there is more to life than just cooking, cleaning, and having babies and that they can actually change their lives, they often do so. One of the main outcomes is, of course, that girls have fewer babies and at an older age and do not force their daughters into early marriages. This makes girls' education THE most effective solution to the problem of overpopulation. Yet, most importantly, if a woman is able to get a job or start her own small business, she invests 90% of her income into her household, while men- only 30%-40% (The State of the World’s Girls, UN Girls’ Education Initiative, 2009). Consequently, children of such empowered women are regularly taken to a doctor, are well fed, and are able to attend school. That certainly brings change upon whole communities.

What I am driving at here is that if you are debating what cause to choose and donate your money to, make it girls' education. Of course, it is not a panacea, but it is undoubtedly the key to solving the problems of developing world. Just think about China and The Four Asian Tigers, who achieved their staggering growth ratings with education and inclusion of women into their workforce (among other things). Now think about how things would change in Africa, South America, and Asia if all the girls (and boys, of course) were educated. That's right, this new revolution is deemed to bring the long-awaited change to the developing world. It's up to us to help make it happen.

See the list of NGOs working on girls' education in my next post.
If you want to learn more on the subject read "Half The Sky" by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn and join the movement at http://www.halftheskymovement.org/.

Are You a Humanitarian?

Happy World Humanitarian Day, everybody!

If you helped a grand mother cross a street, if you volunteered at your local American Red Cross, if you donated to Pakistan flood relief, if you are now in a developing country teaching somebody to read and write, if you donated your Facebook status to a good cause-you are a humanitarian! Because to be a humanitarian means to do good for anyone in need, making no distinction on the basis of religion, race, gender, or political views.

The United Nations note 4 core principles of a humanitarian:
1. Humanity: "human suffering must be addressed wherever it is found."
2. Neutrality: "humanitarian actors must not take sides."
3. Impartiality: "humanitarian action must be carried out on the basis of need alone."
4. Operational Independence: "humanitarian action must be autonomous."

http://ochaonline.un.org/whd/index.html

In a nut shell a true humanitarian sees only what unifies us all, not what divides us. For a true humanitarian we are all human and that's it.

Are you a humanitarian?

The Giving Pledge For All of Us

I am sure that by now everybody has heard about Bill Gates' and Warren Buffet's call on America's billionaires to donate 50% of their wealth to charity. 40 billionaires have already signed the pledge, among them the creator of Star Wars, George Lucas, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and the CEO of CNN, Ted Turner.

This revolutionary and challenging idea came as no surprise from Gates and Buffet, the true leaders of American philanthropy. Now, the boldness of the idea is in the amount of money we are talking about here - $115 billion dollars of pledged donations, at least! Anyone can imagine this amount? I didn't think so. Many billionaires who have pledged are actually planning to give away more than half of their fortune, while Buffet is donating 99% of his wealth. This for me is a great example of the American spirit, the explanation of America's success, the motor behind America's strength. The only better and more powerful example of this would be the "Everyman Giving Pledge", which Stephanie Risa Stein in her post Where the "Billionaire Giving Pledge" Meets the Rest of Us urges ordinary people to "sign."

- Will we, with our ever-so-limited resources, be able to make any impact?- you would ask.
-Very much so!

The reason is that price and income level in developed and developing countries are so different that a sum that for you means nothing can actually change a life for somebody in Africa. People who live on less than $1 a day can start a small business with 2 spare dollars, much less than average American spends on Starbucks everyday! Believe me, I am not exaggerating a bit!

I just read a story of Goretti, one of the many forlorn and impoverished women in rural Burundi. With the help of CARE Goretti was able to get a loan of $2 from her women association which she spent on fertilizer. Her garden then produced a rich crop of potatoes which she sold in a local market. She earned $7.50 and was able to pay back the loan, $2.30. The rest of her profit, $4.20 she invested in making banana beer which was a great success at the local market. The next $2 loan she used on expanding her banana beer business. From her profits she was able to buy to goats, which of course are a huge asset in rural Africa. *

Thus, the solution to global problems lays not only in cash, but also in efficiency. Not all non-profits are equally transparent, not all approaches are equally effective. That is why it is so important to back donations with the knowledge of a problem you are trying to address. Yet, an average American donor, most likely, does not have sufficient knowledge of global poverty, reproductive health, or the water crisis. As a result, donors' money sometime go to projects that don't make substantial difference on the ground. The key, for me, is education of general public about global issues. We, ordinary people, do not always have smart friends as Bill Gates or advisors who will help us identify a critical problem and the best approach to solving it. So, if we don't want to waste our own money-which we don't count in billions-and at the same time want to make a meaningful impact in this world, we have to educate ourselves. Likely, we have Internet now, non-profit sphere is becoming more and more prominent, and social entrepreneurship is becoming a career for many young people.

Don't think that you cannot make a difference if your don't have a six figure salary. Don't be intimidated by the billionaires' pledge, get inspired instead and inspire others to give. Because, in the end, the billionaires' pledge won't solve all the global problems, but everyman's might.

* "Half The Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity For Women Worldwide." Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.

Doing Good 101

As I promised, here is the list of some very worthy causes and non-profits that work in humanitarian field all around the globe. If you are interested in learning more you can always go to http://www.charitynavigator.org/ and check out background information and transparency ratings for any given charity. Another great source is http://www.globalgiving.org/, it matches donors' with non-profits that work in the field of their interest. For example on the front page for donors you can find the list of various topics from animals to environment to women to economic development each of which will lead you to NGOs working on the issue.

1. Disaster Relief in Pakistan. The flood in Pakistan has affected nearly 14 million people, according to UN latest estimates. All of these people are likely to "celebrate" Ramadan without food, water, or shelter.

Here is the page on Pakistan on Global Giving: http://www.globalgiving.org/pakistan-floods/

Oxfam: http://www.oxfam.org/en/emergencies/pakistan-floods-2010. Oxfam has been on the ground since the first days of the disaster and is one of the most well-known non-profits in disaster response. Oxfam is trying to reach out to 650,000 people in the hardest-hit areas with sanitation kits and hygiene supplies.

CARE: Another international agency addressing the crisis. They have built 8 mobile clinics all around Pakistan that will continue working on the ground for at least 4 months.
https://my.care.org/site/Donation2?df_id=7600&7600.donation=form1

2. The Water Crisis.
Did you know that there are almost 1 billion people in the world that do not have access to safe drinking water? That waterborne diseases is the number one cause of disease and death in the world? That every 20 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease? That women in some communities spend 3-4 hours each day on collecting water?

Water.org co-founded by Matt Damon is one of the most renowned non-profits dealing with the water crisis that carries out water projects worldwide and supports their famous and highly efficient water credit program. One well can benefit the whole community and provide thousands of people with water, while toilets and safe hygiene training programs will help prevent waterborne diseases and keep people healthy. By donating only $25 you can provide a person with clean drinking water for a whole year! You can also donate your Facebook and Twitter status and spread the word about global water crisis. Find out more about this problem and the ways you can help: http://water.org/

A Drink For Tomorrow is a small non-profit that uses cause marketing campaigns to raise funds and awareness for the global water crisis. All their staff is unpaid and 100% of income goes to water projects, so you'll be sure that all your money go straight to helping people. How do I know that? Because I am interning for A Drink For Tomorrow! Check it out: http://www.adrinkfortomorrow.org/

3. Women's Issues & Reproductive Health.
Did you know that every year 2 million girls "disappear" because of gender discrimination, either because they were trafficked to brothels and turned into prostitutes or simply killed because they are women? Did you know that a woman dies ever minute, because of obstructed labor or lack of medical care caused by childbirth? Did you know that 27,000 women become victims of rape in Democratic Republic of Congo each year ? In short, poor, rural women are the neediest people in the world, because not only they have no money and no education, but most importantly they have no rights to stand up for themselves.

HEAL Africa is a hospital situated in Goma, the capital of the infamous Kivu province in Democratic Republic of Congo that has been hit the hardest by the war and where military gangs still carry out their bloody raids. HEAL Africa is ultimately the only place where women and girls from Congo's villages can turn to get medical care if they got raped or had labor complications. Nick Kristof, a New York Times Pulitzer prize-winning columnist and a big expert on women's issues who has visited HEAL Africa says: "It's an example of an aid project that makes an extraordinary difference in people's lives." HEAL Africa also does community development work and hosts vocational classes for women, so they can support themselves.
You cab visit the website, learn more about the situation in Congo, and donate here: http://www.healafrica.org/cms/about/

Pathfinder International supports reproductive health in more than 25 countries since 1957. Their programs include HIV/AIDS, Maternal and Newborn Care, Abortion and Postabortion Care, as well as community based work that strives to foster cultural acceptance of family planning. All of these programs have empowered women in the West and today are critical to helping women in the developing world gain the rights and-sometimes-simply survive.

Support women worldwide at: http://www.pathfind.org/

To be continued.

Ramadan Mubarak-Time To Do Good... For All Of US

The Holy month is coming upon us and, although I am not a Muslim myself and don't even believe in organized religion per se, I see a lot of good meaning and lessons to learn in Ramadan. Besides fasting from sunrise to sunset, there is another important part of Ramadan: to give back to people and to do good. While it is always time to do good and give back, Ramadan serves as a very strong reminder of this human responsibility, at least within the Muslim community. Christian community is, of course, also known for its charity work and has it's own share of "do gooders" all around the world. As Nick Kristof in his book "Half The Sky" points out: "Missionaries have been running indispensable health and education networks in some of the poorest countries for decades." It is true, and I praise all religions and churches for their humanitarian work. Yet, interestingly enough, the root of the word "humanitarian" doesn't have anything to do with religion, but it does with humans.

The reason is that it is our human responsibility to care about others and try to help them. Today, in the 21st century, it has never been easier to save a life! Sometimes it just takes a click, 30 sec to fill out a form, $0.20 for AIDS treatment/per day that will save someone's life, $1 that can provide clean water for 1 person for a whole year, $10 a month to keep a poor Cambodian girl at school so that she doesn't end up trafficked into a brothel, $13,000 to establish a whole school in a developing country and change thousands of lives forever. Forget about money! Now you can even donate your Facebook or Twitter status and spread the word about the cause your care about. CARE. It's really the only thing you need. Because if you care you will find time, money, and opportunities to help. If not, you will simply continue living your comfy life in your 1st world bubble. Because unless you want to know what is going on in Pakistan, Haiti, India, or Africa, unless you are not indifferent, you can simply turn off CNN and decide not to hear about all the poor and dying. Because it is not your business and you are not Angelina Jolie to be saving orphans. Right? NO.

You need to be rich to make a difference, right? Wrong, again. I gave you the amounts that each one of us, especially if you have your own car, especially if you go to college, especially if you eat and go out every now and then, can afford to contribute. (Well, maybe except for $13,000, which is still achievable if we come together.) If you do not have money, you can spread the word and fundraise, let people know about the problem and not all of them will be indifferent, I promise! Don't think that rich are more generous than you and me just because they have more money. In fact, it's the opposite! The study conducted by the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology suggests that people with lower income are willing to donate 44% more of their respective income than their richer counterparts.

The bottom line is this: it is not about money, it is not about time, it is not about religion, skin color, or political affiliation. It's about our common humanity and your personal desire to help.
In my next post, I will post names and brief info about my favorite non-profits, working in various fields and different countries, but serving one goal: to give help where it is needed the most.