Professor Donaldson visits the Yunus Centre in Dhaka
Professor Cam Donaldson, Yunus Chair and Director of the Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health at the Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) paid a visit to the Yunus Centre, Dhaka on the 6th of October. Professor Donaldson, who has worked for the past 25 years on Health Economics, has held the newly created Chair for the past 5 months.
During his visit to Yunus Centre, he met and spoke with the staff for a period of time; after which Ms. Nadina Perera gave a presentation which focused on the work of Yunus Centre as well as Social Business.
While talking with the staff of Yunus Centre, Professor Donaldson explained how the Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health at GCU came to be. On the death of a Chancellor of GCU, a lecture series known as the Magnussun Lecture Series was established by GCU. For the first lecture, the university invited Professor Yunus to give the Lecture. During Professor Yunus's time in Glasgow in 2008, he toured the city and was surprised by the difference in living standards between the various districts of Glasgow.
This surprise culminated in a proposal for a bank for the poor modeled on Grameen Bank tentatively called "Grameen Scotland". The Yunus Centre at GCU was set up to evaluate the impact of the operations of the bank. Besides impact assessment of the bank, the Centre is also engaged in carrying out research on different aspects of Social Business, creating courses on Social Business for both undergraduate and graduate students as well as creating degree programs based on Social Business.
Professor Donaldson is visiting Dhaka to discuss possible avenues of research into Social Business as well as the best way to setting up social businesses in Scotland. He took advantage of the opportunity of being in Bangladesh to visit and see for himself some of the Social Businesses that have been set up across the country. He mentioned that he was very impressed by what he saw at the Grameen GC Eyecare Hospital in Barisal. He also had time to interact with the students of the Grameen GCU Nursing College during his lecture on Health Economics to the students and was struck by the intelligence of the girls. Also while here in Dhaka, he will also give a public lecture at North South University titled "Markets and health in the home of Smith and Yunus" on the 7th of October.
From all of us here at the Yunus Centre, we wish Professor Donaldson all the best in his new positions as Yunus Chair and Director of Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health at GCU!
