Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
It’s about poverty in London and Paris and perhaps the most famous opening and closing lines in English literature: ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness...’ and, at closing, ‘It is a far, far, better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.’
And the poverty you read about and saw yourself inspired you to act?
Yes. I came from a low-income family, which was not extreme poverty but not so far away. I have created a programme of microcredit, created a bank to lend money to the poor people so that they can start commercial activities for themselves. And that became well-known, all over the world. The bank is called the Grameen Bank and the method we use is called microcredit.
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Professor Yunus is a Bangladeshi banker, founder of Grameen Bank, economist and 2006 Nobel Peace Prize recipient. As a professor of economics he developed the concepts of microcredit and microfinance – loans for those too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. He has lifted millions of Bangladeshi families out of poverty. Yunus serves on the board of directors of the United Nations Foundation, a public charity created in 1998 with entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turner’s $1 billion gift to support UN causes.
