On Saturday, July 9th the Yunus Centre held an introductory workshop for students interested in participating in the Social Business Essay Competition 2011. At the workshop, Yunus Centre staff did a presentation on social business to familiarize the students with the concept. The students were then presented with two social problems and asked to come up with a social business to help solve that problem. This was a great experience for the Yunus Centre as well as the students! They got to exchange ideas and learn more about different perspectives on social business and it was great to see the students' eagerness to get involved.

Many schools and universities from all over Dhaka were represented at the workshop, including North South University, East West University, Dhaka University, IBA, AcExcel University and many more. Also in attendance, there were Bangladeshi students from America, Canada and Malaysia. We reminded the participants that the submission date is July 31, 2011. For more information, visit the Social Business Essay Competition page:

http://muhammadyunus.org/Social-Business-Day-2011/social-business-essay-competition-2011/

But just one day before the scheduled meeting, the Bangladeshi government fired Yunus, citing the bank's lack of "proper oversight and governance."

According to the New York Times, Yunus' allies claim that the government is trying to discredit a critic, who has often called Bangladeshi politics corrupt.

"Fortunately, our overall experience wasn't hampered," said Ward, a third-year international affairs major who returned from Bangladesh last month. "The bank kept loaning out money and doing what it needed to do.

As underlined by its founder, Social Business Earth is a company with social objectives which aims at solving social problems. And to achieve this, Social Business Earth has created different networks regrouping the private sector, NGOs, the academia, government bodies to disseminate the principles of Social Business as enacted by the Nobel Prize winner, Professor Muhammad Yunus. Social Business Earth encourages people to think differently and act out of selflessness which is inherent in all human beings.

The lecture given by Samantha Caccamo to students, members of different faculties of ULAB as well as staffs of Social Business Earth, Caterina Vollaro and Yunus Centre namely Shariful Islam, emphasized on the importance of incorporating courses on social business in university curriculum and on the necessity to encourage the youth to listen to their hearts, be innovative and become job creators instead of being job seekers.

The seminar ended on a very interesting questions and answers session where M. Ashraf Al Haq, Senior Lecturer at ULAB's Business School took the lead in asking questions related to the price and effectiveness of Grameen products. The note of thanks was given by Dr. Rathana peou van den Heuvel, Associate Professor of ULAB and Deputy Director of ISD.

The above headline describes great management guru Stephen Covey's 8th habit in his book "From Effectiveness to Greatness". The best example that Stephen has quoted which teaches the 8th habit is the concept of Grameen Banking in Bangladesh founded by Prof. Muhammad Yunus, 1983 Noble peace prize winner.

Prof. Yunus - a teacher of economics in a Bangladesh university - was working there during the famine, a difficult period for Bangladesh. People suffered without food. There was starvation. Yunus questioned the principles of economics which were not helpful or practical to alleviate the suffering of the Bangladeshi people. Yunus was doing some research in the village, when he met a woman and had a long conversation and found out to his dismay that she earned only 2 US pennies by making fantastic bamboo stools. When questioned, she said that she has to buy the bamboo from the trader and his condition was to sell it back to the trader for the price he decided.

Yunus also found out that bamboo costs only 20 cents and she was in bonded labor to the trader for only 20 cents. He was flabbergasted. Yunus got his students to check how many of the women were there in the village that needed the money and found out there were 42 such women. Yunus gave it from his pocket and told the women that it was a loan which they can pay back at any time when possible and could sell the bamboo stools to anybody who offered them a good price. Since the women were passionate about their work the mission was successful.

Approaching Government

Thinking of expanding the loan scheme, Yunus went to a Bank in the campus and asked them to lend money to the women. The bank refused saying that the poor people will never be able to repay the loan and the small amount of money required was not worth lending and that the bank rules do not permit such lending practices. He went to a few banks and the results were the same. But the ironic thing was that the women repaid the money lent by him on time and that they were doing well in their business. So Yunus went to the government with a proposal and after two years he was able to convince the government of the merits of his loan scheme. That was the birth of Grameen bank in Bangladesh. This micro credit movement is spreading all over the world. Yunus found his voice and inspired others to find their voice. It contributed to alleviate poverty in Bangladesh.

Thomas Stelzer is the assistant secretary-general of the United Nations for policy coordination and inter-agency affairs. He also works closely with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on millennium development goals. In an exclusive interview with The Daily Star in Dhaka on Tuesday, Stelzer talked about what he learnt from the Social Business Day celebrations. He also focused on the challenges that lie ahead for achieving MDGs and how social business can complement other efforts in reaching the goals. Here is what he said.

Social business is one of the economic theories, which is achieving a breakthrough -- acceptability. People will invest in social business more and more -- with a clear purpose. People will know why they are investing in it, which is a departure from the usual way of investment.

In conventional investment, you have a shareholding value, returns and income, whereas in social business you don't have all of that and you have to conceptualise why you are investing. In social business, the vital question will be about qualitative, not quantitative growth.

People do things they are satisfied with and invest for different reasons. For many, it is a game and sport and they always think how they can maximise the outcome of their investments. What is the reason for putting $15-20 billion in your account?