Marshall Saunders - Awarded Grameen Foundation Humanitarian Award 2009

“At the 1993 District Conference in Panama a lecture on village banking was given by a Rotarian from San Diego. This was the first time we learned that there are NGOs dedicated to giving microcredit loans. FINCA was such an organization. Marshall Saunders was the man from San Diego. He promised to help us get funds if we were interested. Within a year and a half perhaps, Marshall had made his promise come true and gotten us more than US $100,000, putting Finca Nicaragua on the map.”
Franz Orschel, Chairman, FINCA Nicaragua

“I told Marshall years ago that my dream was one day to raise enough money to have two branches of Fonkoze—in Bizoton, where I was born but could not live with my mother because she was too poor, and one in the town where my grandmother who raised me was born. He called me one day to tell me that he was going to sponsor the branch in Bizoton. He called me to tell me that he was going to finance the second branch and make my dream come true.”
Dr. Carolle Jean-Murat, Program Director, Angels for Haiti Project

Previous Grameen Foundation Humanitarian Award Honorees

The Grameen Foundation Humanitarian Award recognizes global leaders who have dedicated their talent, spirit, resources and resolve to fighting poverty.

Her Excellency Tarja Halonen, President, Republic of Finland (2004)
Graça Machel, stateswoman, South Africa and Mozambique (2003)
Gloria Arroyo, President, the Philippines (2002)
Her Majesty Queen Sofia of Spain (2000)
King Carl Gustaf XVI and Queen Silvia of Sweden (1999)