Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus received the Hillary Rodham Clinton Award today at Georgetown University. Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton presented the award at a ceremony held in Gaston Hall.
Four honourees were recognised this year. Professor Yunus, Reema Nanavaty, Director of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) of India, and Tory Burch, fashion designer and founder of the Tory Burch Foundation, received the Hillary Rodham Clinton Award. Muna Sukhtian, Board Chair of Microfund for Women in Jordan, received the Georgetown Ambassadors Award.
Around 400 guests attended the event, including ambassadors from nearly 25 countries, entrepreneurs, and university faculty and researchers.
Professor Yunus received a standing ovation from the audience.
Speaking at the ceremony, Secretary Clinton said she had seen the work of Grameen Bank first-hand. “How women have become self-reliant and secured their own safety and empowerment is unprecedented,” she said. “Professor Yunus has taken his work beyond the women of Bangladesh and spread it across the world.”
In his address, Professor Yunus said the recognition came as Grameen marks fifty years of work. He said the award would send a strong message of encouragement to the Grameen family in Bangladesh.
He spoke of the women who have built their own lives through microcredit. “You will no longer see a shy, silent, poor woman,” he said. “You will see confident women who speak about their own problems and needs. Their words carry weight, because they run their own bank. They own Grameen Bank.”
Professor Yunus said the next generation must be encouraged to create jobs rather than seek them. “We are not job seekers, we are job givers,” he said. He described social business as a business created to solve a problem, with surplus reinvested in the same cause, and pointed to its growth in healthcare in Bangladesh.
He also announced that Grameen University is being established to prepare students as entrepreneurs.
“The purpose of education is to make people creative and enterprising,” he said.
Georgetown University President Eduardo M. Peñalver, Bangladesh’s Ambassador to the United States Tareq Md Ariful Islam, other Bangladesh Embassy officials in Washington, D.C., and Yunus Centre Executive Director Lamiya Morshed were present at the event.
The ceremony concluded with a performance by famous opera singer Monica Yunus.
