Grameen Bank wins 2006 Nobel Peace Prize

Thirty years ago, Mohammed Yunis took an action that changed the world for many, many people in the Third World.

He was told it would never work, that it was pie-in-the sky, he might as well throw the money away.

Undetered, he forged ahead. He started the Grameen Bank and began issuing micro-loans to the desperately poor - in effect he offered bootstraps to pull ones self up by. Fully 97% of the people served by the Grameen Bank are women.

The idea was simple and elegant...Offer small loans to the most desperately poor to give them the seed-money to start cottage-industry businesses that could lift the recipients of these loans out of poverty. It was wildly successful and has indeed changed many lives over the last three decades.

True to the ideals that led Mr. Yunis to start Grameen Bank in the first place, he will use his entire Nobel award to fund further efforts to improve the lives of the worlds most desperately poor.