The Blue Sweater
A wonderful image by Magnum photographer Susan Meiselas, as the cover of a wonderful book, The Blue Sweater, by a wonderful person, Jacqualine Novogratz, founder of the Acumen fund a non-profit that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty. In many ways, the Acumen fund is not a typical charity. It is a non-profit that fights poverty not with aid and giving but by serving as a Venture Capitalist for the poor providing funds, the knowledge network and technical assistance to build sustainable businesses. These are the businesses that create not only jobs but also address ket regional problems that limit the economical development of the communities. The Acumen fund so provides dignity to the people that want the opportunity to build their own future with their own effort, people that do not like just to receive assistance but want to be part of the solution.
The book was just published this week in the USA and the story is so inspiring that I thought I should share it with you all. In the cover photograph you see a green net on the left side. This is a long lasting anti-malaria net produced by A to Z Textile Mills, a Tanzanian manufacturer that was funded as a start up by the Acumen Fund, no producing millions of nets that are impregnated with a long-lasting insecticide, making them effective for up to five years instead of the usual six months.
My family helped make me who I am .. and they join me in dedicating this book to our larger family, those countless millions around the world who lack money and security but possess dignity and an indomitable spirit. For their time is coming, and this story is for them. – Jacqueline Novogratz
from the Prologue:
They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I took mine and fell flat on my face. As a young woman, I dreamed of changing the world. In my twenties, i went to Africa to try and save the continent, only to learn that Africans neither wanted nor needed saving. Indeed, when I was there, I saw some of the worst that good intentions, traditional charities, and aid can produce: failed programs that left people in the same or worse conditions. [...] To address poverty in a more insightful way, in 2001 I started a nonprofit organization called Acumen Fund. We raise charitable funds, but instead of using the money for giveaways, we make careful investments in entrepreneurs who are willing to take on some of the worlds toughest challenges.
I heard Jacqueline interviewed on XM Radio while driving from an appointment with one of my design clients. I was so inspired by what she read to the interviewer that I raced home and ordered the book
immediately. It is the most heartening book on the subject of giving assistance to those most in need that I have ever read. I have not finished the book yet, and inspite of my promise to myself never to recommend a book I have not fully read myself, I have with this one. Jacqueline has a gift of telling, drawing pictures with words, and bringing the color and the moments to life with such texture in her language that she weaves the telling into a fine cloth. I am so taken with this book, so impressed with the life she has chosen, with the way she has embraced the opportunities and the adventures and the responsibilities placed before her. I wish this book was required reading for all junior high kids. I think it would be a great service to provide this book to the multitude of children at that age throughout the world, starting first in our own United States. It would give me the greatest pleasure to place it in their hands. Those of us who have the strength to help others, even in our own small communities, can be inspired and instructed in the values she has taught herself through trial and error. When we were kids our parents did what they could to instill some awareness, telling us to say grace at every dinner by remembering the starving children of the world, in a distant places most of us never had a maps view of, never knew where it was in the world, and it was too far away to be felt. It was lame compared to the actual story of her early days in Africa, hopscotching from unknown places to more unknown places. She gave the world her energy and her youthful vision and those were beautiful gifts. There are so many vivid depictions and simply stunning ways she uses words to express her meanings. She tells truths we don”t want to hear but we should all know. This is a powerful book, honest to the point of painful reality, stunning in the use of language and so worthwhile I”d like to buy a case of them and carry them around placing them in the hands of those I know would really care and would get it, all of it, her message, her intelligent understanding of how giving comes and goes with strings of responsibility and the value is in the independence not the dependence of the people it is meant to help. I”m an interior designer, entrepreneur, sometime teacher, mother, wife, grandmother, involved in WiNGs Networking in my community with other entrepreneureal woman and the initiator of a mentoring program titled Olive Branch, after a woman who reached into my life, when she saw her strength would bring me comfort. She will be 90 this month and when we met I was 10 years old, today I am 67 she is still a guiding force for tenderness and lovingness and strength in my life. I am not wealthy, not poor, but involved, learning, working a long day still, I have always recognized the value of a good days work. I would love to dance with the African women to celebrate my oneness with them, to grasp the hands around the world that strengthen with each grasp. Inspiring…this book is that, touching in her account of elected associations, her understanding of the value of making good choices at each juncture, then putting her money and her mouth to the task, and her energy and her thought and her complete self. I am so grateful for this book. I”ve written all over it, underlined passages to recount for myself. It is so good to know that Jacqueline is in this world, it’’s been her oyster and she has sought and found the pearls.
All good … all valuable … all inspiring … I am grateful for this book and for Jacqueline’’s willingness to share it all with us, the world is a better place and will keep getting better with books that bring reality to the needs of others with such color and tender mercies. Thank you for this wonderful book Jacqueline..Sherry Dershimer
Sherry, thanks very much for your insightful and very candid comment. I fully agree with you, and indeed I find most inspiring that Jacqueline chose the life of service even at a young age, and was committed and persistent to make a difference in the world.
Warm regards,
Miguel