Noble Laureate Md. Yunus favours evolving a system that would generate wealth for everybody in the world only by “imagining”.
Bhubaneswar: Muhammad Yunus, Noble laureate and founder of Grameen Bank, a microfinance organisation and community development bank in Bangladesh, was awarded this year’s 11th humanitarian award at KISS Institute here Friday.
KIIT & KISS president Saswati Bal and founder Achyuta Samanta presented the award to Yusuf for his unwavering commitment to eradicate global poverty. “Like a true humanitarian, you felt the suffering and helplessness of the poor and dreamt of a poverty-free world.,” he read out the citation.
Addressing the gathering Yunus called upon imagining a system that creates wealth for everybody in the world. “A vast majority of the global population owns only one per cent of the world’s wealth. In India, the privileged one per cent is holding 73 per cent of wealth,” he said and told the students to imagine the wildest dreams because only imagination can bring change.
He said KISS is Samanta’s dream which became a reality. Both KISS and Grameen Bank are products of wild imaginations that were pursued relentlessly, he stated.
Yunus is the second Nobel laureate to accept this award. Last year, the award was presented to His Holiness Dalai Lama, also a Nobel laureate.
Yunus, known as the “father of microfinance”, was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 2006 along with Grameen Bank which he had created to provide loans to the poor in Bangladesh. His model of microcredit popularised by Grameen Bank was successfully replicated in over 100 countries providing lifeline to millions of poor, especially women.
Saswati Bal said Yunus is full of human values and compassion and he feels the pain of the poor. In her presidential speech, she said, “He has been working to remove intergenerational poverty for the past four decades. It is an honour to present him the Humanitarian Award”.
Yunus’ company Yunus Centre signed an MoU with KISS for promoting social business. He also unveiled his book titled World of Three Zeroes – The New Economics of zero poverty, zero unemployment and zero net carbon emission at a hotel in the city.