Yunus for institutional support to the young for entrepreneurship

Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus stressed Saturday the need for providing institutional support for young people who have nothing but creative business ideas to become entrepreneurs and thus remove unemployment problem from the country.

He also expressed dissatisfaction over the present education system that produces some kind of labour force who look for jobs only.

Prof Yunus hoped that transformation of education system to create job-givers instead of job-seekers would make 'unemployed' an unknown word in the world some day when not a single person will remain jobless.

He made the remarks at the inaugural ceremony of the 5th annual Social Business Day organised by Yunus Centre at a city hotel.

The theme of this year's programme is "We Are Not Job-Seekers, We Are Job-Givers-Turning Unemployment into Entrepreneurship".

The Nobel laureate hosted the event while President of the Robert F Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights Kerry Kennedy presented the keynote speech.

The gathering offered an opportunity to meet, interact, discuss and collaborate with leaders of the global social business community with a view to developing effective solutions to most pressing problems.

The focus of this year's day is on tackling youth unemployment through social business.

In his welcome address, Prof Yunus said people are now frustrated over the way the economy behaves with them and the way business is done. "The business is chasing money for the whole life."

Specially, the young generation is very much frustrated at the present situation, he said adding  they are looking for alternatives which social business can provide. It can give them the relief as it is based on selflessness nature of human beings, he pointed out.

"Within the business, there are some toxic elements which we cannot get rid of but these create sufferings. To cleanse these toxic elements from business to make it sanitary and safe is difficult," Prof Yunus observed. "That's where the idea of social business comes. Some non-dividend companies can solve human problems."

He said the whole education system is wrong. It mainly produces some kind of labour force who try to get the best grade and get jobs in some best companies.

"It's a shame to have a human objective like that. Human being is a creative being. Job uses only fraction of the creativity of a human being and job seeking creates all the problems," he added.

He made it known to all young people looking for jobs that they are not job-seekers but they are job-givers. "This will change the whole mindset of those persons." Prof Yunus said unemployment is a global problem with Spain having half of its youths being unemployed, Italy 40 per cent and Greece 70 to 75 per cent.

Sweden has a high rate of youth unemployment for which its people have come here to see social business models in Bangladesh. Two joint venture projects will be launched with Swedish companies under social business initiatives to provide services to education and health sectors, he added.

In Bangladesh, through the new entrepreneurship programme, Yunus Centre invites young people with creative business ideas and help them turn into entrepreneurs by polishing business ideas, providing fund until the business becomes self-sufficient and take away investment back.

Yunus Centre does not make money out of the investment it makes for the new aspiring entrepreneurs, Prof Yunus explained.

"Bangladesh has become a model for its activities for entrepreneurship development through social business. Many countries now want to apply social business in their context to solve their problems," he said.

The event was attended by more than 1,000 participants. Among them, 275 international participants are from 31 countries including Andrea Jung, President and CEO, Grameen America (former global CEO of Avon), two delegations comprising 46 members from China, a 43-member delegation led by Danone Communities from France, a 15-delegation led by Grameen Credit Agricole, a 30-member delegation from Taiwan, high-level representatives from NABARD, Tata Steel and Bajaj group from India.

A social business design lab session was held during the event where social businesses from five countries will be showcased. There is a Social Business Marketplace exhibiting social businesses from around the world.

There are six concurrent panel sessions that focus "Academic World: What's Coming up next," "Fighting Unemployment with Social Business: Nobin Udyokta Initiatives of Grameen Companies", "Innovative Financing for Social Business: Example of Crowd Funding, Loan Guarantees and Others", "Social Business Pedia", "Introducing Some Interesting Social Business around the World" and "Social Business in Marketing".