I read this sentence above in one of these inspirational emails that friends send me and I thought it was quite clever. I hope I can inspire some people in my lifetime.
Do you have someone in your life that truly inspires you? Someone you look up to and wish you could be that little bit more like him or her? Or maybe you are like me and get inspirations in different parts of life from different people.
A true inspiration to me was David Bussau. David Bussau is a social entrepreneur whose innovative approach to solving world poverty has been recognised world wide.
I watched a live interview with this man last weekend and was almost in tears listening to the story of how he is currently helping 1.8million people in 27 developing countries. He provides small loans to promising entrepreneurs, empowering them to start or expand their own small businesses. This enables whole families to get out of poverty by their own means not relying on charity for survival.
"Each of us has the capacity to be incredibly productive and those who realise this are the ones who make the difference in the world," says Bussau. "For me the challenge is to find ways to release that incredible potential in human beings, to enable that creative force and drive to be expressed."
His organisation has distributed over one million loans since it began 30 years ago. A Manchester University study has shown that for each job created, on average six people are permanently taken out of poverty and 13 people in the community benefit, so over five million people were potentially helped by David’s Organisation ‘Opportunity International’ in 2003 alone. He was named the Ernst & Angus Australian Entrepreneur of the year 2003.
What an inspiration!
I found the story of a young man to be very touching, which David shared on the weekend with his audience. This young man and his wife lived in poverty, expecting their third child. This child, the man told David, would as soon as it was born inherit three generations of debt. Even though the man was working on the fields of a rice farm all day, he could not provide enough money to his family and pay off the debt. So together they thought of a way the family could get out of this financial crisis which has been their reality all their lives. The wife was very talented in sewing gowns, so David gave a one hundred dollar loan to buy a sewing machine. Within three month the couple was able to give the money back, buy another machine and employ another lady. This business is still growing now, employing many people and making a huge profit.
Thank you David for sharing your story, I am very honoured to have been in your presences
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