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"We see the poor people as human 'bonsai'. If a healthy seed of a giant tree is planted in a flower-pot, the tree that will grow will be a miniature version of the giant tree. It is not because of any fault in the seed, because there is no fault in the seed. It is only because the seed has been denied of the real base to grow on.

People are poor because society has denied them the real social and economic base to grow on. They are given only the 'flower-pots' to grow on. Grameen's effort is to move them from the 'flower-pot' to the real soil of the society. If we can succeed in doing that there will be no human 'bonsai' in the world."
Muhammad Yunus, Bangladeshi man who won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize and founded the Grameen Bank and the microcredit movement.