March 10, 2008 (Vol. 7, No. 4)

Nobel Laureate Working to Build a World Without Poverty

Nobel Peace Laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus greets audience members gathered at the Lehman College Lovinger Theatre for his lecture on "Social Business Is the Solution."

Nobel Peace Laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus, known as "the banker to the poor," visited Lehman March 9 and told the audience in the Lovinger Theatre that "people do not create poverty—the system creates poverty."

Based on his experiences in his native Bangladesh, where villagers are desperately poor and also illiterate, he said he found that poor people are very capable of using the opportunities they are given to move out of poverty. His goal, he continued, is to abolish poverty throughout the world and to create a "poverty museum," where people can see what the circumstances of this condition used to be.

Dr. Yunus accepts the President's Medal from Lehman President Ricardo R. Fernández.

Dr. Yunus is the founder and managing director of Grameen Bank, which began with his personal loan of small amounts of money to destitute basketweavers in Bangladesh and has since advanced to the forefront of a worldwide movement dedicated to eradicating poverty through microlending. This innovative banking program provides poor people—mainly women—with small loans they use to launch businesses and lift their families out of poverty. In the past thirty years, microcredit has spread to every continent and benefited over 100 million families.

Audience members listen attentively to Dr. Yunus's talk.

At the conclusion of the program, Lehman President Ricardo R. Fernández presented Dr. Yunus with the President's Medal for "advancing human dignity and economic equality, inspiring us to seek a world without poverty, and helping to build a sustainable path to peace."

Former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer (left) and his wife, Aramina '73, vice-chair of the Lehman Foundation, meet with Dr. Yunus at the reception.

The event was sponsored by Lehman College and the Lehman College Foundation. David Levey, chair of the Foundation Board of Directors, opened the program, and Professor Mario Gonzalez-Corzo (Economics, Accounting, and Business Administration) led the question-and-answer session, with questions submitted by both his students and members of the audience.

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