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What We’re Reading: Darcy Deane on How Great Women Lead in Teen Vogue and More
Seventeen-year-old Darcy Deane and her mom, Bonnie St. John, wrote the book on inspiring female leaders. In How Great Women Lead: A Mother-Daughter Adventure into the Lives of Women Shaping the World, the co-authors profile some of the world’s most inspiring women–from Hillary Rodham Clinton; to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf; to Sharon Allen, the first female Read more…
Tagged Board of Governors, Bonnie St. John, Darcy Deane, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Ending Poverty, Financial services, Global Poverty, Hillary Clinton, How Great Women Lead, local staff, Microfinance, Nicaragua, Noemi Vivas Ocaña, Opportunity International, Opportunity Nicaragua, Poverty, what we're reading, Women, Women Leaders
Remembering All Heroes Who Fight for a Cause Greater Than Themselves
Memorial Day, although a domestic U.S. holiday, calls to my mind a universal theme: the honor and reverence due to the men and women who have fought and died for a cause bigger than themselves. Though our focus at is most often on international issues such as chronic poverty; empowerment of women and the disenfranchised; Read more…
Technology & New Innovations at Chicago Microfinance Conference
At Friday’s Chicago Booth and Zell Center Microfinance Conference, several of my colleagues and members of heard from ‘s SVP of International Business Development, Dennis Ripley, who spoke as part of a panel called “New Products and Innovations in Microfinance,” along with Kate Cochran, COO at Vittana; Karl Muth, Consulting Economist at Grameen; and moderator Nina Read more…
Tagged 2012 Chicago Microfinance Conference, Africa, ATMs, Cell phone banking, Cell Phones, Chicago Microfinance Conference, Clients, Colombia, Credit Suisse, Dennis Ripley, DePaul University, Ghana, Grameen, hub-and-spoke model, Kenya, Latin America, Loans, M-PESA, Malawi, MFI, Microfinance, Microinsurance, Nicaragua, Opportunity International, POS devices, Poverty, Richard Leftley, Savings, Smart Campaign, Students, Technology, Tigo, Uganda, Vittana, YAO, Young Ambassadors for Opportunity
Accion’s Michael Schlein, David Roodman and More at Friday’s Chicago Microfinance Conference
On Friday, I attended the 8th Annual Chicago Booth and Zell Center Microfinance Conference along with . It was my third consecutive year attending this conference, and this year’s topic was “Micronext: Strategies and Challenges of Social Impact.” The day-long conference was hosted by the Emerging Markets Group at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Read more…
Tagged 2012 Chicago Microfinance Conference, Accion, Booth School of Business, Center for Global Development, Chicago Microfinance Conference, Conference, David Roodman, Emerging Markets Group, Ending Poverty, Financial services, FINCA, Harris School of Public Policy, Kellogg School of Management, Loans, MFI, Microfinance, Microfinance Open Book Blog, northwestern university, Poverty, Savings, Smart Campaign, Technology, University of Chicago
Chicago Premiere of No Woman, No Cry, Directorial Debut of Christy Turlington Burns
Yesterday afternoon, YAO members, members of the Board of Governors, several of my colleagues and I went to the Chicago premiere of Christy Turlington Burns‘s directorial debut, the powerful documentary “No Woman, No Cry.” It’s part of the Every Mother Counts campaign, which raises awareness and support for maternal health issues worldwide. In her film, Burns shares Read more…
Tagged Africa, Asia, Bangladesh, CARE, childbirth, Christy Turlington Burns, Community, Education, Every Mother Counts, Global Poverty, Guatemala, Health insurance, Healthcare, Latin America, Maternal Health, maternal mortality rates, Mothers, No Woman No Cry, Poverty, Tanzania, U.S., Women, women's health, Women's Philanthropy
What We’re Reading: Top 10 Posts on International Women’s Day
As we close out the week, I’m reflecting on some of the articles published in honor of yesterday’s International Women’s Day. Here are just a few of the provocative, interesting, inspiring and even maddening(!) ones I encourage you to read or re-read, in no particular order… “What if Mark Zuckerberg Were Born a Girl in Read more…
Tagged Africa, Agriculture, Climate Change, CNN, Community, Education, Ending Poverty, Financial services, Global Poverty, Huffington Post, International Women's Day, IWD2012, Kenya, Loans, Malawi, MFI, Microfinance, Mothers, ONE blog, Opportunity International, Oxfam, Poverty, Rural Outreach, Tanzania, The Guardian, The New York Times, Trust Groups, UN Women, Women, Women's Opportunity Network, Women's Philanthropy, WON, World Bank
Our Prayers for Victims of Monday’s Devastating Earthquake in Philippines
On Monday morning, a 6.7-magnitude earthquake (U.S. Geological Survey) struck central Philippines in a narrow strait just off Negros Island. The epicenter was closest to Tayasan, a coastal town of about 32,000 people flanked by mountains in Negros Oriental province. The quake could be felt in at least seven central provinces, including Negros Occidental, Iloilo, Cebu Read more…
What We’re Reading: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1964 Nobel Lecture on Racial Injustice, Poverty, and War
On December 11, 1964, the day after he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave this lecture at the University of Oslo in Norway. In the lecture, he discussed what he said was “the most pressing problem facing mankind today,” which is a moral and spiritual poverty. As King put it: This problem of Read more…
Tagged agape, Ending Poverty, Faith in Action, Financial services, Fundraising, Get involved, Global Poverty, God, Martin Luther King Day, Martin Luther King Jr., Microfinance, Nobel Peace Prize, Opportunity International, Poverty, racial injustice, War
What We’re Reading: “Ten Biggest Positive Africa Stories of 2011,” The New Yorker
“…Yes, there is tragedy in Africa, and you will always find it there, and we must take those tragedies seriously, but there is also extraordinary opportunity. And if you see this continent as the continent of the future, it sort of reframes it. This is a continent that, by 2050, will be the largest and Read more…
Tagged Africa, Arab Spring, Bono, Cell phone banking, DR Congo, elections, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, famine, Ghana, Healthcare, Horn of Africa, Kenya, Liberia, life insurance, M-PESA, Microensure, Microinsurance, mobile phone banking, Nobel Peace Prize, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, The New Yorker, Tigo, what we're reading
