Two cancellations, one of an interview and another of a meeting (come on, who meets/calls late Friday afternoon) have created some unexpected space for me to get back on track (after an astonishing 6 day hiatus) with my websayito.
Had a great time today out at University of Roehampton with the students and faculty of the Business School. First was a talk about the Social Entrepreneur’s journey, relating the story of how we built FINCA, and then a meeting with the faculty and others who have been involved trying to craft solutions to the urban poverty in Southwestern London. A lot of knowledgeable, experienced, and passionate people. I learned a lot, and am more convinced than ever that, as the so-called Developed World looks increasingly like the Third World, sharing a lot of its problems of unemployment, falling incomes and deficits in the health and education sectors, we may be repatriating more and more of the solutions found in the the Southern Hemisphere, microfinance among them.
It has been an exhausting week, with lots of early morning flights and long days meeting with potential investors in Belgium, Amsterdam and Geneva. The good news is, with our good performance in 2011, fundraising is getting easier (touch wood).
A day off tomorrow! Hope the weather holds and I can take a gambol through Hyde Park, and catch up with it’s chief tourist attraction: the squirrels.
Check out the following short story by my son-in-law, Trevor Houser, well on his way to becoming America’s Greatest Living Comic Writer. The thing I envy about Trevor (we writers don’t “admire”, we “envy”) is his unique way of looking at things, for example “not understanding” breadfruit.
It’s 4:30. I’m knocking off early. See you at the Pub.
Rupert