Visa International Sponsors “Mohammad Yunus Banker to the Poor”

PRLog (Press Release) - Jan 10, 2007 -
Amman, Jordan-( January 2007) - Visa International, the world’s leading payment organisation, acting on its strong sense of corporate social responsibility, sponsors translation of the Ashoka Film Project “Mohammad Yunus; Banker to the Poor”. This particular project by Ashoka , an organization founded in 1980 to develop the field of social entrepreneurship, aims to highlight the achievements of 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Mr. Muhammad Yunus, and his fundamental contributions to the world of entrepreneurship.

Mr. Yunus, also known as banker to the poor, is the founder of the Grameen bank, a bank that loans money for the purposes of self-employment to people with no collateral. Since its establishment in the late 1970’s, the Grameen Bank has helped over 4 million women in Bangladesh. Mr. Yunus’ innovative model for operations is founded on the idea that five borrowers can form a group and that each member of the group can guarantee another member’s loan. Over the years, this model has proven to be successful, as the Grameen bank had effectively been able to pull a large percentage of its clients out of poverty.

Taking a genuine interest in Mr. Yunus’s ideology, Visa International has worked with Ashoka to sponsor the subtitling of Ashoka’s film series on Mr Yunus and his work. Today, and through the joint efforts of Ashoka, Visa International and dotSub, providers of unique browser tools for subtitling, the film series has successfully been subtitled in over 100 languages including English, Arabic, Farsi, Indian, German, French, Japanese, and many others. The film series itself consists of four titles including “Mohammad Yunus Banker to the Poor” , “Mohammad Yunus Creating a Poverty Free World” , “Building Social Business Ventures”, and last but not least “Nothing More Powerful.”

Commenting on Visa International’s contributions to this ground-breaking effort, Mr. Naser Abu Ghazaleh, Regional Manager of Visa International Levant, said,” We at Visa International see ourselves as global players in the payments industry, and therefore consider it our responsibility to also sets standards in the field of corporate social responsibility. We are proud of the efforts we exert towards promoting education and financial literacy, and we recognize that Mr. Yunus’s contributions to the fields of social entrepreneurship, financial literacy and development are ones we feel we need to highlight. The model Mr.Yunus uses to run the Grameen bank is one we feel people can benefit from. Our support for Mr. Yunus falls directly inline with our support for the leading Bank for the Poor and for the achievements and contributions of notable figures such as Mr. Yunus on the international arena. We recognize that each market is unique but his model is one that serves all market models. Our respect for his efforts and our belief in his work are the main reason behind our sponsorship.”

Mr. Abu Ghazaleh added that Visa International supports any initiative aimed at creating easier means for people to carry out their day to day spending “After all, we at Visa International work to provide easy to use, highly-accepted and secure payment means throughout all the communities we operate within. Our services are tailored to target all sectors of the community, and a project such as this one, targeting people with no collateral, is undoubtedly aligned with our goals. (We see ourselves as partners of Mr. Yunus in thought, for, like him) NOT CLEAR, we feel that everyone deserves to have the means to secure their needs and to overcome poverty. On behalf of all our member banks and Visa International, we commend Mr. Yunus’ bank model, and we hope that the world can learn from the innovative line of thought that he has adopted.”