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The usefulness of micro credits
The economic crisis has the largest impact on developing countries. Therefore development cooperation seems more necessary than ever. Recent research concludes that micro credits are the best development instrument to support underprivileged people. Loans don’t make the recipients 'addicted' to aid. With a micro credit they are helped in an equal manner to start their own small company. Muhammad Yunus, the Bengali guru of micro credits, didn’t need research in the seventies to know the impact of this kind of loans. After the independance of his country from Pakistan he just saw the enormous poverty around him. At that time he was an economics professor at Chittagong University and he certainly did not intend to lend money. He just did what he felt that needed to be done. His first loan ever amounted to 27 dollars which he paid for himself to a group of 42 women in the village of Jobra, near Chittagong. I was lucky to meet this charismatic man with his lively laugh two years ago in Bangladesh. Dressed in his famous outfit -a blue and white checked shirt with a beige vest- the Nobel Peace Prize Winner of 2006 didn’t look like a bank manager at all. Maybe that’s exactly why he succeeded in managing his Grameen Bank which so far has lent over 6.5 billion dollars to 7.5 million people in Bangladesh alone. Yunus openly expressed his opinion about conventional banks which are in his opinion unfair. Because, he said, they do not grant loans to those people who need it most. And: “In most Third World countries the government is not the right place for foreign development projects.” Concerning this last part a former Dutch politician recently wrote the book 'The price of bad conscience'. In the book he criticises the budget support to corrupt regimes, the fact that aid addiction is kept alive and the refusal of the Dutch minister Koenders for Development Cooperation to evaluate independently the budget for development organizations. According to the writer of the book these organizations focus too much on the public services and not on the private sector. In an interview this month (January 2010) he says: “We have done a lot with groups of women who are beaten by their man. That is terrible, but I can’t protect these women in the jungle. What I can do is give a micro credit to to an African woman who would like to start a small restaurant.” Brigitte de Swart Read and watch the interview with Muhammad Yunus 
The crazy ones
Last year I met quite a lot of inspiring people. People who from their passion make the difference somewhere in the world. No matter what other people say about them, they keep on fighting for the good cause. Because they believe in theirselves and their dreams, how difficult or impossible they may look like. The reason these people will never quit is because they think differently. Which reminds me of the best television commercial ever, created for Apple in 1997 titled ‘Crazy Ones’: “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” On me the impact of this commercial was and still is huge. In just one minute it tells the amazing story of the most significant historical people of the past: from Albert Einstein to Martin Luther King, from Maria Callas to Pablo Picasso and Mahatma Gandhi. People who despite all antagonism kept on going to fulfil their dream. Not seldom with blood, sweat and tears. Also today there are people like them. Extraordinary people with an incredible drive who all have one thing in common: they go with the flow. Never ever they will force a situation or try to manipulate people to reach their goal. Instead they keep on following their own flow and welcome people who wants to join. Because they all know that joining strenghts is the only way to create a better world. I wonder if I am in some way also a little bit crazy. Being involved in 1We - One World Experience is like a virus: once you are infected, there is no way to get rid of it. So here’s to the lucky ones! Brigitte de Swart 
City of God
For those who did not see the movie, ‘City of God’ sounds like heaven on earth. A city somewhere in a paradise where the sun expelled all shadows. A place to feel safe, without fear or pain. Unfortunately this could not be further from the truth. ‘City of God’ or ‘Cidade de Deus’ in Portuguese stands for hell on earth. It is one of the most violent and notorious slums of Rio de Janeiro where murder and manslaughter are daily news. There is one ruling world: the criminal one.
Children are being taught on an early age not to underestimate this. Crime and violence is a way of life. Whoever makes it to twenty is lucky. All others die in the cold hard battle of the endless drug wars which keep the favelas in fear for centuries. Only some find a way to escape this war without winners. I wonder if this is also the case for the boy who we faced in the slum Rocinha near Ipanema. An area comparable to Cidade de Deus. We were supposed to meet the Canadian photographer Chantal James. For financial reasons and to experience the true life in a favela she was living voluntarily in this slum. Danger literally lies around the corner. The broad main road in the middle of the area, where also a bus line runs through, goes slowly up the mountain. Our taxi driver navigated carefully through the many cars, motorcycles and scooters which passed us by. Alongside the road we saw a lot of car wrecks; the windows replaced by black cloths. The new purpose of the cars is lookout post for uninvited guests. Our canary yellow taxi didn't stay unnoticed for long. Just a little bit too far into the favela we turned a corner… and stared right into the harsh look of a fourteen year old boy. He pointed his machine gun on our taxi as like in slow motion. What seemed an eternity only took a couple of seconds. Too short for the four of us to even made a sound. Instead we didn't move an inch. Not even when the guy followed us with the barrel of his machine gun until we disappeared from his sight. While leaving the favela as soon as possible I remembered a saying I read earlier. ‘Fight and you'll never survive, run and you'll never escape’. Thank God we survived. I do wonder if this also goes for this ‘soldado’. Brigitte de Swart 
Beryl's World
Philadelphia (USA). We have an appointment with our international ambassador Beryl Wolk. A man in his eighties who dedicated most of his life to marketing. He has deserved his tracks with his ‘eighty years of marketing experience’ as he tells us several times. Beryl Wolk decided to change his course. His current mission is: a better world. Through marketing. Because, he says: “Marketing is making it.”
‘Beryl’s World’ as his company is called, is located on the top floor of an office building in Jenkintown. According to him ‘the closest place to God’. Who enters his domain literally steps into Beryl’s World. Never in my life have I seen anything like this. Each peace of the wall is filled with ads, magazines, incentives, posters and above all pictures. Beryl with Jesse Jackson, Beryl with Donald Trump, Beryl with Sylvio Berlusconi, Beryl with God knows who. His own room tops everything. Everywhere, really everywhere there are products which Beryl in his life as a marketing guru had to deal with. From anti-cancer pills to AIDS pins, health juices and alcohol testers, from books to magazines. Everything you can imagine is there, either on the ground or on the wall. It resembles a museum: the Beryl Museum. And in the middle of his unique collection Beryl welcomes one after another prominent person, adventurer and idealist. With his boundless energy and his twinkling eyes this marketing expert seems to impress everyone. Sitting on the tip of his ‘throne’ in the middle of the room this little big man tells everyone who wants to hear exactly what marketing is all about. As a fully experienced teacher who speaks to his eager students with devotion, you can’t do anything else then take this man into your heart. Even if it were not because of his vast knowledge, then it is because of his charming, fatherly attitude. Beryl Work is the American Dream in flesh, who is happy to advice and assist ‘his adopted kids from The Netherlands’. As we go to the extreme for one single goal: a better world. Brigitte de Swart 
Grateful eyes
We are on our way to the interview with Bibi Russell, a former top model who at the moment as a fashion designer offers approximately 35,000 weavers a job at the Bengal countryside. As usual traffic in Dhaka is one big chaos. Cars, trucks, rickshaws and everything else with wheels drive through one another and cause a permanent fog of smog hanging over this huge city. Through the streets people maneuver like ants in a gigantic anthill. Almost everybody with one goal: to survive! At every traffic light many beggars accumulate around the stationary cars. They beg piteously to commuters to part with a few takas, just enough to get them through the day. Mostly without any result. If you want to score you need to stand out, and people go far, very far to establish this. For instance a woman carrying a ‘lease baby’, whose insides are hanging half outside her body. This sight makes your heart ache and I found it incredibly sad that women need to hire a baby to get some money. Life can be inhuman and unfair. I ask Steven, an expat living in Dhaka for almost five years, how he deals with this kind of situations. Sometimes he gives some money, he replies, but most of the time he tries to ignore them. And that is exactly what I did over the last few days. I turned my head and looked away. But to be honest it didn’t feel right. At that moment a woman stops next to me. Her deep wrinkly eyes, her sharp nose and protruding cheekbones make her appear older than she truly is. Her green sari covers most of her grey hair. Her arched posture makes her look small and vulnerable. She holds out her hand with a smile, a desperate smile. Steven gives me some money. I open the window a little bit and hand her the takas. For a few seconds her grateful eyes meet mine, just long enough to feel a connection with this fragile woman. Just long enough to make my heart cry… I probably made her day, but how about her next one? And what about the next generation? For this old woman any structural help will come too late; but not for the next generation. It may sound strange but for me this particular woman stands for hope and life. Brigitte de Swart |
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