As children we are read stories and fairy tales that talk of brave people who face insurmountable challenges that somehow over come them. Along the way of growing up, we encounter legends, myths and folklore which at times seems to exaggerate the realm of reality to deliver a moral to their story. As we become adults though, I think the power of these fictional characters and events gets lost. Daily life takes over, and a lot of it can seem stranger than the word we read in books, and the adventures those words took us on.
Catastrophic events happen in real life. The survivors become the heroes. They are ordinary people who rise to the occasion to pu their lives back together. When the tsunami struck Indonesia in 2004 it became an epic disaster that could rival some myths. The official death toll was estimated at 225,000 with two thirds of those deaths occurring in Aceh, Indonesia.
Through the cooperation of the Grameen Foundation, the Abdul Latif Jameel Group and the American Red Cross, a process was started to strenghten the local micofinance institution, Yayasan Mitra Dhuafa. The focus was on helping poor woman rebuild their shattered lives. When you don't have much to start with, you have even less to rebuild with when catastrophe strikes.
That's why micofinace solutions are so important. The small monetary amount of these loans make a huge impact in helping the poor. Tsunami Recovery: Rebuilding Aceh, which is available in pdf format here is a collection of stories of women whose lives were impacted by the cause of the tsunami and the effect of microfinace. It's a beautiful and rich document in content and design. It's every sense of what a storybook should be.
Please take a few minutes to download it and read it. And while you're doing so, take a trip back to when you were a child full of wonder and amazement of the world and the possibilities that your storybooks offered. Back than it was fiction, today or when you read this book it's reality. Either way, the magic of inspiration is there.
Please consider a donation to the Grameen Foundation, they are masters of creating and telling the real life stories that change the world in a positive way.
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