The accomplishments of great peacemakers are described below. Complete each table by explaining what qualities you think the individual possesses, enabling him or her to work for peace.
Muhammad Yunus was born in 1940 in a village near Chittagong, Bangladesh (then Eastern Bengal). His biggest influence was his mother, who always helped any poor people who knocked on their door. This inspired him to commit himself to ending poverty.
In 1974, there had been a terrible famine in Bangladesh. Muhammad Yunus, now a university economist, led some students on a field trip to a poor village. He met 42 basket weavers who between them had borrowed a total of $27 from loan sharks who were demanding repayments with very high interest. Yunus lent them the money to pay off their expensive loans.
When he saw how this tiny amount of money helped the people pay off their old loans and enabled them to start earning a better living, Yunus knew what he had to do. Yunus continued to give out ‘micro-loans’, and in 1983 he formed the Grameen Bank, meaning ‘village bank,’ founded on principles of trust and solidarity.
In Bangladesh today, Grameen has 1,084 branches, with 12,500 staff serving 2.1 million borrowers in 37,000 villages. Grameen methods are now applied in projects in 58 countries. Yunus and Grameen Bank won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize.
Wangari Maathai was born in Nyeri, Kenya (Africa) in 1940. During a pioneering academic career, she became the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree. She was active in the National Council of Women of Kenya between 1976 and 1987. During this time she founded the Green Belt Movement, to mobilise poor women to plant some 30 million trees.
Her idea was to produce sustainable wood for fuel and combat soil erosion, two critical environmental issues. The initiative has grown into the Pan African
Green Belt Network, through which similar projects have been launched in Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Lesotho, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and other African countries.
The Green Belt Movement went on to campaign on education, nutrition, and other issues important to women. In 2002, Professor Wangari Maathai was elected a Member of Parliament in Kenya with 98% of the votes. She was appointed as a Kenyan deputy environment minister in 2003 and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.
48 Resource B1 – Great Peacemakers Like You and Me
Great Peacemakers Like You and Me
accomplishments
Muhammad Yunus
“Extreme poverty is not something consistent with stable peace. People need dignity; people need to take care of their basic needs”
qualities
accomplishments
Wangari Maathai
“When I first started working with the women… I was told, ‘you cannot plant trees if you don‘t have a diploma.‘ I said, ‘Forget it: you can!‘“
qualities
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