Zerotwonine

Copyright for all photos - Jonas Werner

Professor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Muhammad Yunus was in Germany from 04 to 11 of November for a week packed with events.

On the evening of 5 November, Professor Yunus held a public speech at the Schlachthof Wiesbaden, and your friends at 029 were in attendance. Over 1,000 people came from all over Germany to hear him speak; needless to say, the place was packed!

Professor Yunus gave a moving speech about how he first introduced the idea of microcredit, which led to founding the Grameen Bank, which together with him, were the Nobel Peace Prize recipients in 2006 for helping so many poor people lift themselves out of poverty. He then went on to outline the concept of social business, and how that has the potential to end poverty in the world.

At the end of his speech, Professor Yunus was met with a standing ovation, as he called upon Wiesbaden to be the centre of the social business movement - not only in Germany, but also in the world.

The evening began with a musical performance from Finn Martin who created some moving music with a senza, an African string instrument, as well as with his saxophone. Adding to the mood of the music, was the native language that Finn sang it, whatever it was, it sounded incredible.

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Professor Yunus also made his way to Berlin while in Germany to attend the 20th year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall celebrations at Brandenburg Gate, along with such high-profile public figures such as Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, Gordon Brown, Hillary Clinton, Mikhail Gorbachev, among others.

Copyright of Nasir Ali Mamun

A large wall made up of 1,000 dominoes was erected in the days leading up to the event, which reached from Potsdamer Platz to the Brandenburg Gate. The domino pieces represented the Berlin Wall - and the end of the evening was marked by the toppling of the dominoes.

After the various political representatives gave their formal speeches in front of a large crowd gathered under the rain, Prof. Yunus was the last to speak before the last of the dominoes fell, as he addressed the millions of viewers on TV in Germany and around the world, as he encouraged them to “Together, let’s make poverty history.”