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“The one message that we are trying to promote all the time (is) that poverty in the world is an artificial creation... We have to ... redesign our institutions and policies, and there will be no people who will be suffering from poverty. So I would hope that this award will make this message heard many times, and in a kind of forceful way, so that people start believing that we can create a poverty-free world. We didn't do anything special … all we did was lend money to (poor) people, and that makes the trick. That makes the change.” – Muhammad Yunus, in an interview with the Nobel Foundation upon learning of his receipt of the Peace Prize  Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize recipient
It is our goal, in this quarterly e-newsletter, to provide a concise digest of news, information, and links to e1ducate, e2nlighten and e3mpower your work on behalf of nascent, new, established and growing women-owned enterprises around the world. Our subscribers come from all walks of life - businesses large and small, NGOs, associations, the public sector, and educational institutions - yet all share a common interest in supporting women's enterprise development in their communities and around the world. We hope you find this information of interest.
Several publications have recently been released sharing the voices of women business owners from very different walks of life. They are interesting, enlightening, and worth a read. Check out these links:
Even before the announcement on October 13 that Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and 'founding father' of the microfinance movement, would receive the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, there has been much interest in and discussion of the power of investing in the growth of new enterprises. Some organizations are taking this concept a step further, and providing the means to allow individuals to invest small amounts of money (smaller, certainly, than angel or venture capital investments) directly in new or growing enterprises.
For example, Kiva (a Swahili word meaning
unity) is an online marketplace for entrepreneurs
seeking investors and for investors who are willing to
lend small amounts of money (starting at $25 USD)
to entrepreneurs in the developing world. Since its
launch in March of this year, Kiva has provided over
$200,000 USD to 450 entrepreneurs in 14 countries.
In our next issue, we’ll take a look up-market, at trends in angel capital networks globally.
The third "E" of Womenable’s E3 News is empowerment. One key ingredient of empowerment is knowledge that you – the enablers of women’s enterprise – can use. There are several very useful research portals we think you should be aware of. These sites contain searchable databases of research studies and journal articles focused on entrepreneurship and other social science issues. While some reports may need translation into plain English, they nonetheless could provide a mother lode of useful information. Here are two social science-focused research portals:
For links to articles solely focused on women’s entrepreneurship, see FemEnt.com. The International Council for Small Business' Women's Entrepreneurship Committee will also be undertaking the accumulation and dissemination of research reports focused on women's entrepreneurship. Stay tuned for further developments on that front. And, of course, that mega search engine Google has undertaken an effort to put many books, journal articles and other scholarly works online. Check out Google Scholar. A quick keyword search on "women business" led to 69,500 links!
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E-mail:
jweeks@womenable.com
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