this is a grameen fans web - rsvp info @worldcitizen.tv if we have missed vital health link in guided tour to official grameen bookmarks on health kalyan (est 93 as diagnostics, insurance ), and most recently Grameen Nurse   & US-led learning centre consortium (Emory leads panel including US Yunus Partners  McGill and Duke Universities, Pfizer, General Electric Healthcare Systems, Mayo Clinic, Sabin Vaccine Institute and Johnson & Johnson; there are alternative views 1) GH whose Grameen CP8 corporate brands include Grameen Danone (kid nutrition), Grameen Veolia (water), BASF Grameen (chemicals eg mosquito nets); health service structure of Grameen Health Care Services in dhaka -4 substructures GKalyan, GS, GTS. GBB -and several SB programs 1 Eyecare;   CP9YunusUni: GlasgowCal  ; Grameen has an Italian NGO partnership with Cure2Chldren (Bone marrow/Thalassemia) ; health-overall as edited by grameen america the main organiser of CP3 health sb summits as part of america's leading health conference circuit; 

Our blog catalogues all social business cases of healthcare -eg Aravind ; RSVP info @worldcitizen.tv if you have  a case to nominate 

 Social Business Csse

How Can Universities Help Catalyse Unique Global Social Business Partnerships

Grameen Nurse Institute is an inspiring, if brand new example of a Social Business, for the world to map, action and learn around. It probably would never have happened if Dr Yunus hadn’t gone to talk at a University and found that the University and he wanted a lifelong partnership –well 2 actually! The second partnership is Grameen Bank Glasgow which may become one of our favourite cases in next years’ annual if it proves to be the first Grameen Europe bank to become a regional benchmark. (references British Council http://www.britishcouncil.org/new/about-us/75th-Anniversary/lecture-series/Muhammad-Yunus/  : BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8134491.stm ) For now we will focus on the story of Grameen Nurse Institute. It’s a fantastic example of job creation in a sector with rising global demand, and demonstrates how social business shares out that surplus for all parties integrating around the poorest, and not just for the few who see the most bucks to make.

On driving Dr Yunus to his talk and awards ceremony at Glasgow Caledonian University , compatriot and university lecturer Dr Zasheem Ahmed asked Dr Yunus whether he knew that Glasgow Caledonian was one of the largest trainers of nurses for the UK national health Service. Seeing that Dr Yunus looked interested by the remark he asked why not ask Vice Chancellor to lend you some of Caledonian's trainers in Bangladesh. This has catalysed a chain of partnerships that less than 10 months later were one of the most inspiring announcements of Clinton Global Initiative 2009. In particular. Dr Yunus had hunted out Nike Foundation who have branded their focus around Girl Power with extra support from one of Buffett Family Foundations, Novo. How could they refuse to join in what is probably the truest Girl Power Social Business of them all.

Dr Yunus has long been looking for an opportunity to start up a Free Womens University , a social business model which as far I know began as a unisex one in South Africa at Cida thanks to founder Taddy Blecher, though it too quickly attracted girl power supporters in the likes of Oprah Winfree. She wanted the alumni of her own school for girls to seriously consider graduating at CIDA.  Another early fan of CIDA was the entrepreneur who won 2^nd prize in Richard Branson’s tv reality apprentice competition Rebel Billionnaire- her prize being the money to start a girls charity. Those who know of Branson’s own social business Virgin Unite will see it more or less launched itself out of CIDA. The Free University model, broadly speaking, offers to train a graduate in some life critical service or practical entrepreneurial innovation for free. In return, the CIDA graduate commits to spending their next several years serving rural or poorest parts of the country.  

So now the partnership of Glasgow Caledonian as a Yunus Centre- one that is now advertising the world’s first social business chair in health – Nike Foundation and an emerging chain of partners is building Grameen Nurse Institute.

When Dr Yunus won the Nobel Prize he told his friends that health partnerships would be his big new priority. His social business pop group at the time  The Green Children  raised a million dollars which was enough to build 2 replications of the aravind eyecare hospital (started in India – se separate entry). These facilities were opened within a year of starting up. Dr Yunus also has a social business partnership with a hospital construction group that helps!

However perhaps the most deeply practical dynamic to know about the Grameen Nurse Institute Plan is that it intends to send its trained nurses to serve at Grameen members rural health insurance branches, and of course to encourage neighbourhood school girls through peer groups to learn first aid, and perhaps become the next graduates of Grameen Nurse Institute. Grameen’s Health insurance http://www.grameenkalyan.org   branch began in 1992 and still focuses on diagnosing illness and recommending where to go or what pills to take for the cheapest cure (that part being a co-pay the patient makes). It seems like a good deal to us as Grameen Kalyan is still quoting Grameen Bank members annual insurances for the family at two dollars in those locations it operates. The main block to this most economical service in the world of health spreading across rural Bangladesh is trained personnel. The several hundred current staff of Grameen Kalyan are probably the most productive medical and economics network you will find anywhere –as always rsvp info@worldcitizen.tv if you spot a candidate for that social business roll of honor      

Can Grameen Nurse Institute be a benchmark for renewing girl power and community healthcare?

Why not web round Grameen Nurse Institute as most valued girl power social business on the planet. Dr Yunus is busy showing how to connect partnerships of medical technology companies now that most diagnostics and some procedures can be examined remotely through the net –ie the top expert doesn’t have to be in the field to empower fieldworkers as mobile nurses or para medics. These partnerships look set to keep on growing as the head of Grameen America, Vidar Jorgensen, makes his own for profit living with America’s largest heath conferences http://www.worldcongress.com/ The time I met Vidar he explained that he had a hobby of searching the world for unexpectedly economical healthcare services in poorest places and had discovered where they appeared they were usually connected with a microcredit. So that’s why he  originally partnered Dr Yunus. This was years before Dr Yunus met up with the social entrepreneurs of Ashoka and Jeff Skoll’s Oxford world championships, and asked them why not become sustainable as social business entrepreneurs. History shows that many communities’ proudest creations were hospitals as social businesses- the 2010s can rediscover the huge vocational values that were once the heart of the medical profession and which heroines like Florence Nightingale empowered the world’s most loving girls to mother.

Official Grameen web sites - GrameenHealth (Bangladesh) ; GrameenKalyan (Bangladesh) illness diagnosis insurance; GrameenAmerica- regional partner search hub and worldwide health partners in association with worldcongress.com - cases from YunusCentre (Bangladesh) include: ..coming soon

Rest of this web is a fan site - help us connect the most relevant social business case news as well as anyone who can help Bangladesh Healthcare or who wants to replicate extremely affodable system solutions  chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk washington DC tel 301 881 1655