Women's World Banking | Investing in Women, Transforming Lives

Women's World Banking Investing in Women, Transforming Lives

Today, I am going to deliver a guest lecture in a Program on Entrepreneurship at Manipal Institute of Management, Manipal. Dr AP Achar, the coordinator requested me to speak on Social Entrepreneurship, on which I did some work last year and presented a paper in August, 2009. In the process of collecting some information, I came across a few organisations working for women's emancipation, particularly in rural areas.

Till recently, I was reading a book titled 'Banker to the Poor' by Dr Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, who received the Nobel Peace Prize for 2006. I am quoting his three books to the audience. I am also referring to number of Indian Entrepreneurs including some prominent women. While reading about women, I came across quite a few - Shahnaz Hussain, Lizzat Papad, SEWA (Ila Bhatt), Vandana Luthra, Mallika Srinivasan, Madhura Chatrapathy, Kiran M Shaw, Ekta Kapoor, et al.

And referring to the microfinancing, I also laid my hands on Dr Johh Hatch's Village Banking (FINCA), The Unstoppable Indians in a NDTV Show uploaded in http://www.ibef.org/; Ms Ila Behn or Bhatt's SEWA (http://www.sewa.org/); Shri Mahila Gruh Udyog's Lizzat Papad (http://www.lijjat.com/); Bill Drayton's http://www.ashoka.org/; and an interesting reference made to Mother Teresa as an Entrepreneur by Subroto Bagchi in his 2nd book "Go Kiss The World".

And here, I am giving a link to the Women's World Bank (I am sure many are not aware of its existence). The range of activities carried out by the Bank are commendable. They also publish a quarterly newsletter. One should patiently go through the site and encourage them. They are operating in atleast 28 countries including India (pl see http://www.fwwbindia.org/). More information can be had from their website http://www.swwb.org/ or http://www.womensworldbanking.org/.