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The New Heroes is a four-hour series, hosted by Robert Redford, which tells the dramatic stories of twelve social entrepreneurs who bring innovative, empowering solutions to the most intractable social problems around the world. Each story in this unique series illustrates the amazing changes that are possible when an innovative idea is coupled with optimism, a strategy for action, and a passionate belief in human potential.

The New Heroes : Power of Enterprise
The third program in the series looks at how social entrepreneurs are working to break the cycle of poverty by empowering people to earn a living. Among the foremost of these is Muhammad Yunus, a.k.a., "the banker to the poor," whose Grameen Bank has provided 4.7 billion dollars in loans to 4.4 million families in Bangladesh and inspired similar credit operations in a hundred countries. "I saw the conventional banking standing on its head," says Yunus of his project. "So I turned it around so it can stand on its feet." This episode also travels to the jungle city of Pucallpa, Peru, where Albina Ruiz Rios has been forming micro-enterprises to clean up garbage that is sullying the environment, contaminating water and causing disease in poor neighborhoods. And it ventures into the violence-plagued slums of Rio de Janeiro, where Maria Teresa "Tete" Leal leads the Coopa-Roca sewing cooperative, a fair labor shop that creates clothes seen on the runways of the high-fashion world.
 

LEARN MORE:

You can learn more about The New Heroes at the Skoll Foundation website.

More information about Muhammad Yunus is available at his website. 

Find out more about Albina Ruiz Rios at Ashoka.org.

Maria Teresa "Tete" Leal also has a profile at Ashoka.org.