Girl Power

By Adam Valvasori - Values Manager

Image via Care Australia

Today I was lucky enough to go to a lunch and hear from Professor Muhammad Yunus, one of my favourite, real-world, super heroes.

He's the guy who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for establishing the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. It began with a loan of $27 to a group of impovrished women and now the bank lifts millions out of poverty by disbursing $6.6bn in tiny loans to millions of people living in poverty.

Yunus' bank has been copied across the world and microcredit is now a mainstream strand in dealing with poverty. You've heard me bang on about Kiva.org before - well that's all because of Yunus!

Friends of The Body Shop, I can't encourage you enough, if you want to help fight poverty - INVEST IN WOMEN!

When you give women in poverty a chance. When you remove the barriers of discrimination. When you give them a chance of education and employment... they have been proven to be better than men at feeding, sheltering and educating their family. In other words women are one of the keys to making poverty history.

Monday was World Women's Day and I thought I would share these great videos from Plan Australia from their Because I am A Girl Campaign. You should also check out Care Australia's I Am Powerful campaign which also targets women who are disproportionately affected by poverty.

C'mon! The least you can do is loan a sister $25 through Kiva!