Arts of survival

Investment, Design and Education in rural Places to stop poverty and migration into cities.

• "In 1950 there were 86 cities in the world with a population over one million; today there are 400, and by 2015, there will be at least 550.1.

• Cities, indeed, have absorbed nearly two-thirds of the globalpopulation explosion since 1950 and are currently growing by a million babies and migrants each week.

• 1.2 billion people are living on less than a dollar a day.

• There may be more than quarter of a million slums on earth and in 2001 it wasestimated that there were at least 921 million slum-dwellers." (Mike Davis, Planet of Slums)

What can be done to stop poor people from migrating into cities and in many cases into a bigger dilemma?

Banking on the poor and "friends of rural Women"

In the late 70s in Bangladesh, Muhammed Yunus (Nobel Peace Price Winner) and the Grameem Bank started as the first to give out micro-credits to poor rural women. Mainly Women are chosen as they are more likely than men in repaying loans and divide their earnings over the whole family.
The idea is that small loans with low interest can make a big difference in poor peoples lifes.
Micro credits in rural Communities give opportunities to many people that otherwise would have left to cities; It has been observed that the villages receiveing micro-fundings have not only less emigration but as well a lot of people returning from the cities.
Yanus believes that this system can make an end to poverty in the whole world. At July 2007 Grameen Bank has issued US$ 6.38 billion to 7.4 million borrowers and by the time hundreds of other micro-financing Institutions have rosen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfdD3NPgEY4&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrUQKuvsmvw&feature=related

Not only financially can be helped; Education and Design concepts can help in poor community's as well as money.
With 14 Years William Kamkwamba from Malawi, has build a windmill out of scrap after having seen a picture in the book called "Using Energy" in a library close to his village.The Windmill powers three pulbs and 2 radios. William is now 19 and looks for funding for his big dream of going back to school and building a bigger windmill that provides power for the whole community.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/153

Opportunity is something that millions of poor people are fighting for; they illegally cross boarders, risk their lives and then find themselves in an other miserable slum of an other overpopulated and polluted city, dreaming of their villages and families they have left behind.
In order to stop this vicious circle we should start at the very bottom and invest and design for the rural people.