Poverty is created by who ?

January 1, 2009
While discussing our resolutions for 2009 the 16 Decisions of Grameen Bank frequently come up. Here are three of them:-
Decision 3: We shall not live in dilapidated houses. We shall repair our houses and work towards constructing new houses at the earliest.
Decision 4: We shall grow vegetables all the year round. We shall eat plenty of them and sell the surplus.
Decision 5: During the plantation seasons, we shall plant as many seedlings as possible.(read all 16 decisions here)
The founder of Grameen Bank, Professor Yunus, recently said, “I believe that not only is poverty the most pressing issue of our time, I also believe, at the same time, that it is a problem that we have fully the capacity to tackle and overcome within the first half of this century – if only we choose to do so” (more)
True. It is obvious that poverty is not created by poor people, and in order to overcome it we have to go back to the drawing board and redesign our concepts and institutions, and make it easier for poor people to interface with them.
Poor people are endowed with the same unlimited potential of creativity and energy that any human being in any station of life, any where in the world is endowed with. It is a question of removing the barrier in front of the poor people to unleash their creativity to solve their problems. Home Grown Food Network throughout 2007 and 2008 has documented that barrier “in play”. We look forward to continuing to overcome it.
Peter Naughton
Manager, Home Grown Food Network