In places where government priorities and market imperatives create a world so capricious that to help a neighbor is to risk your ability to feed your family, and sometimes even your own liberty, the idea of the mutually supportive poor community is demolished. The poor blame one another for the...

LAHORE, PAKISTAN

This morning, Lahore is hot and sunny. Former Acumen Fund Fellow Jawad Aslam meets us in our guesthouse lobby and we drive through the city, passing Lahore's beautiful fort and mosque, admiring the mix of cars and donkey carts, of morning life, though traffic is easier before nine...

The year 2011 has many of us around the world trying to catch our breath and make sense of all that is happening at home and elsewhere. Think about the Middle East and North Africa! Egypt has unleashed a global recognition that change is possible -- and people want to...

People are searching for better uses of their charity. After nine years, I feel most strongly than ever that patient capital is a powerful way to build sustainable enterprises that can bring critical services like clean water, health care, housing and energy to low-income people in ways that they can...

When TED's Chris Anderson and I returned last week from our visit to Pakistan's flood zones, we couldn't get out of our heads the faces of the people we'd seen. They comprised the true treasure of Pakistan, the unlimited potential of what it means to be human, stuck...

Five days ago, the great river Indus continued its rush to the sea and flooded the plains of Thatta and Sujawal, towns located about 90 minutes outside of Karachi. Dr. Rashid Bhajwa hosted my husband, Chris Anderson, and me to visit the camps his organization is supporting there. Dr....

I'm in the office of Dr. Sono, one of Pakistan's most extraordinary social entrepreneurs. Born a Hindu Dalit or "untouchable," he has worked for his country since his youth and emerged as one of the most important grassroots leaders in Sindh. He runs the Sindh Rural Support Organization, a nonprofit...

At a camp for flood victims in Rhojan, Pakistan, we meet a man named Humayan who is standing beneath his USAID-issued plastic tarpaulin with 16 family members on a 100-plus degree morning. He tells us he is a tractor driver...

It is always emotional for me to visit Khuda ki-basti 4 (KKB-4), the housing development built by Saiban, an Acumen Fund investment, outside Lahore, Pakistan. I remember the first year when it was impossible to get the land registered because Jawad Aslam (KKB-4's manager and former Acumen Fellow)...

I'm flying from Islamabad to Lahore, Pakistan. My seatmate is a little girl, about 10 years old, dressed in a fuchsia top and matching leggings with a very hip belt around the waist. Her tiny wrist is circled with a red flowered watch and she wears dainty earrings. She is...

I meet Maryam Bibi, one of Pakistan's true heroes, in our office. Maryam is known among those circles of women who fight against all odds in the most challenged communities, sacrificing and risking everything at times, all because they have a vision of what could be. Today, she is wearing...

Last week, I received an honorary degree from Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina in honor of Sandor Teszler, an extraordinary Hungarian who fled the Nazis after losing most of his family and settling in Spartanburg, where he built one of the first fully integrated textile factories in the region....

In "The Blue Sweater", which comes out today (February 16) in paperback, I share the story that gives the book its title as an example of the interconnectedness of people around the world:

Mathare Valley, Nairobi

Mama Rose...

"Will I miss anything about Mathare Valley?" the old woman wrinkled her nose and her already small eyes narrowed to quiet slits. "If you said I had to leave here in ten minutes with everything I have, I would be ready to go in nine....

Silver hair, crucifix, pale blue eyes and an irrepressible spirit that shines through, Ingrid Munro, daughter of missionaries, meets us for lunch at a restaurant called The Springs in an upscale part of Nairobi. The restaurant is spacious and clean with umbrella-covered tables filled with people eating typical Kenyan food.