23363: Minsky:Join Global Grassroots Leaders Attacking Haiti's Poverty (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: "tminsky@ix.netcom.com" <tminsky@ix.netcom.com>


From: Microcredit Summit Campaign news@microcreditsummit.org
Subject: Join Global Grassroots Leaders Attacking Haiti's Poverty


Join Global Grassroots Leaders Attacking Haiti's Poverty

Five seasoned practitioners from Asia, Africa, and Latin America will
gather
in Haiti in mid-November. Their assignment: Solve the problem of economic
dependency for Haiti's most vulnerable.

Fonkoze (pronounced Fon-koh-zay) and Zanmi Lasante (Partners In Health) are
organizing the working summit to attack Third World problems with Third
World experience. Fonkoze is Haiti's largest microfinance institution.
Zanmi
Lasante is the leading non-governmental provider of rural primary medical
care in Haiti.

Dr. Paul Farmer, founder of Zanmi Lasante, says: "I am tired of bringing
people on the edge of death from tuberculosis, AIDS or other diseases to
the
point where they can become economically active, then watching them suffer
because they have no way to make a living." Farmer's work in central Haiti
is the subject of the bestseller Mountains Beyond Mountains by Pulitzer
Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder.

The organizers invite you to take part by receiving email updates before,
during and after the November 14-19, 2004 summit. You can also interact via
our website with these experts as they design their solution for Haiti. You
will be party to the birth of the solution. To join the summit, email:

summit@fonkoze.org

"We want to explode the myth that we don't know how to end extreme poverty,
"
says Anne Hastings, Fonkoze's director.

"We know it can be done because we do it every day," adds summit
participant
Rabeya Yasmin, manager of BRAC's program for the ultra-poor in Bangladesh.
"In our program, 75% of participating women have achieved a sustainable
livelihood over a 2-year period, at a cost of $291 per person."

"Microfinance is a way out of poverty for those ready to participate," says
Hastings. "But those in extreme poverty are not yet ready. Getting them
ready is our challenge."

The summit's concrete and interactive format will "immerse the
practitioners
in the reality of Haiti, then quickly bring them out of that and into
intensive working sessions, drawing on their deep experience in radically
different cultures," says Hastings.

"We're pushing the boundaries of problem-solving methodology, by fostering
intensive cross-cultural interaction among expert practitioners. The
purpose
is to design the programs that will transform the most destitute from
recipients of charity to independent heads of households."
_________________

For more information or to receive summit updates, email:
summit@fonkoze.org

To follow the summit online, visit: http://www.fonkoze.org










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