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What’s in a Name?
SKIpgo Little girls skipped along the side of a dust road as an African sunrise peeked above the horizon, never knowing that the lasting image they created inspired the name of a scholarship program. It was 4:30 in the morning, and Shyam was driving with colleagues through the bush—rural areas—of Zimbabwe. They passed countless children who walked…
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¿Por qué Chile?
Of all the places in the world SKI Charities could extend to, you might be wondering, “Why Lebu, Chile?” In our last blog post, we talked with Shyam about his most recent travels to Lebu, where he discussed the vibrant presence of the indigenous Mapuche culture and his admiration of their hard work. How did…
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Our Mothers, Our Inspiration
While the Grameen Bank gave SKI Charities its infrastructural model, the main impetus behind creating the organization was very personal. SKI Charities founder, Shyam K. Iyer, credits his mother for inspiring him to make the charity a reality: “In her family, my mother is 8 of 9 kids and the older girls were just sort…
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Muhammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank, an Inspiration for SKI Charities
SKI Charities founder, Shyam K. Iyer, is the first to admit that he did not invent the concept of microfinance. Nor did he pioneer the idea of extending microfinance opportunities specifically to women. Iyer comments, “What we’re doing, we think it’s unique in the places we’ve gone, but I didn’t invent the concept of micro-finance.…