In Memory of Bella Abzug
The Microcredit Summit Secretariat was deeply saddened by the death of
former U.S. congresswoman and activist Bella Abzug who served as Co-Chair
for the Microcredit Summit Council of Advocates. While our work together
was short compared to Bella's extraordinary career, she made a deep
impression on the Microcredit Summit and on each of us at the
Secretariat. Bella's words at the Summit still resound in our ears and
hearts:
I ask each of you to wear the hat of an advocate and pledge to bring
passion to your work. . . . I ask you to back microcredit for macro
change-to build communities, not only markets. I ask you with one hand to
respond to the daily needs of those who go hungry each day and, with the
other hand, shake the system that is so upside down, it is generating a
race to the bottom. I ask you to remember that the most pernicious form
of environmental degradation today is not pollution or toxic dumps or
military fallout, all daggers in the planet's lifeline, but poverty.
We are grateful to have been her partner.
