Martin Burt « Skoll Foundation

Fundacion Paraguaya

Skoll Entrepreneur(s): Martin Burt
Change(s) Addressed: Economic & Social Equity

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Martin Burt founded Fundación Paraguaya in 1985, offering microcredit and entrepreneurship education — a daring enterprise, because Paraguay was still under the rule of a dictator. The foundation’s self-help groups provided real benefits, and Fundación Paraguaya survived to support thousands of small businesses and become a leader in microenterprise development as Paraguay transitioned to democracy. In addition to microlending and Junior Achievement for youth, the organization is developing a self-sustaining, productive agricultural school that offers credit upon graduation to put learning into practice. All of these innovations have had systems-changing influence.

KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS OF 2010

Fundación Paraguaya’s self-sufficient school model is now being replicated by more than 50 organizations from 27 countries.
Teach A Man To Fish, our sister organization based in the U.K. disseminating our educational model, now has more than 1,300 members from 105 countries.
Fundacion Paraguaya’s Microfinance Program is moving away from a traditional “minimalist” lending approach and is developing a “total poverty elimination” approach for all its borrowers, therefore expanding into employment, health, education, housing, water and other similar areas.

SEE THEIR WORK IN ACTION:

In march 1999 I was mayor of the capital city of Paraguay and there was a popular uprising.

It was a big protest in the central plaza, and democratic forces had assembled there to ask the president to resign because he had violated the constitution.

And all of a sudden then they started shooting at the students and, one by one the students started falling, being hit. Many wounded. Eight died.

So this when I decided that something had to be done and I just ordered my city engineer to bring in 30 garbage trucks and twenty heavy equipments, and surround the building of Congress.

Everybody thought that we are going to be massacred. Even the American ambassador called me and told me get out out of Plaza because we have information that they're gonna shoot you and they're gonna kill you.

Well let them come because there has to be a time when people just say, this is the line, enough is enough.

There were many deaths, but it was a major victory for democracy because the dictatorial forces could not take over congress.

Congress assembled the next day on Saturday and the President resigned on Sunday. My name is Martin Burt, and when my term as mayor was finished in 2001, I decided that I wanted to dedicate my life to working with people and promoting economic self reliance from the bottom up.

I realize that all the public policy was not going to transform the society. I decided to return to the Paraguay and develop a foundation. And continue working with the people, the small people, the poor people, the young who I believe are the basis of any sustainable change in any society.

In 2002 we were offered this agricultural school in Paraguay, and we said sure lets take it and lets try to make it self sufficient.

In developing countries people are without any type of serious education. They have no skills, they have no knowledge. But when you reverse that you begin to transform inhabitants of a country into citizens.

When these citizens can make a decent living off the land, then they can start regaining confidence in themselves.
They start thinking of what is good, what is bad, what is productive for society and what is not.

So what we need is to transform farmers into rural entrepreneurs.
We envision a school there are livestock, dairy, chicken, pork, fish that are run as a business with a break even point and with a professor of being in charge of its efficient business operation

Students learn in math class how to calculate the break even point of their chicken coop for example and they have to know that it is not enough to have a chicken coop.
You have to have a chicken coup that will produce one hundred and seventy eggs a day have to be sold at such a price at the local market. To earn such and such amount in order to pay the professor.

It is not just how to grow tomatoes. It is how to make money growing tomatoes, because people have been growing potatoes and corn in Latin America for the past 15,000 years and they're all poor.

So it is not a matter of knowing how to grow the crop or raise the animal. It is a matter of how to make money and how to be financially successful doing farming in our poor countries.

Jorge Aredo is a typical student of our agricultural school. He comes from a very large family. There nineteen children in his family. He's the tenth.

You can understand the lack of opportunities that a child in these circumstances has.

In his case, his family was very fortunate that they could get him through ninth grade.

At which time he entered our agricultural school. Everybody talks about eliminating poverty, but nobody talks about how do we put money in the poor's pockets?

At our agricultural school we say bluntly we want to eliminate poverty. We want to teach the poor how to make money.

There is general thinking in the world that the poor can never help themselves and then economic self reliance is not possible in Latin America. Economic self reliance is not possible in Africa or in India. And we have to change that.

Every poor village in the world can have an economic self sufficient agricultural school to teach its young farmers.

And once you have rural entreprenuers making money, they can become leaders of society and start a system by which people regain power.

It is not a matter of expecting things from the top down but really building a country from the bottom up.

Martin Burt