September 13, 2005

Martin Burt Bridges the Gap Between ‘Haves’ and ‘Have-Nots’

All eyes were on Martin Burt of Fundacion Paraguaya at a recent conference in Silicon Valley when he challenged the audience to imagine a world in which the poorest of the poor would have the skills and tools to lift themselves out of poverty.

“No one would ever call Martin Burt a pessimist,” said Jim Koch, director of the Center for Science, Technology and Society at Santa Clara University, which sponsored the Global Social Benefit Incubator conference. “He envisions a world where subsistence agriculture and despair are replaced by grassroots entrepreneurism, improved livelihoods and the creation of self-sustaining markets. Martin is one of those rare individuals who can soar with ideas, then reach to the ground and build the capacity that is needed to bring those ideas to reality and transform lives.”

Martin, 48, returned to his native country of Paraguay in 1983, after studying in the U.S., determined to follow in the footsteps of his activist forebears. “My dream was to use the most advanced technology not to make money for myself, but to reduce the disparities between rich and poor and create an organization where the top professionals would want to work,” he said.

At first, people were suspicious of his motives. They wondered why anyone would be crazy enough to create a nonprofit when he was capable of creating a profitable business. They thought his motive was not to provide a trickle-down benefit but to empower the poor against those who were well-off.

Of course, Martin’s goals were much more straightforward, and he was able to persuade the business community to start a microcredit program that has supported 35,000 small entrepreneurs and created 18,000 jobs. In 1995, a request by three college students led him to develop a partnership with the Junior Achievement organization that has taught more than 50,000 young people the practical skills they need to become entrepreneurs, including many disadvantaged youths not reached by the traditional Junior Achievement program.

Under his leadership, Fundacion Paraguaya took over a bankrupt agricultural high school two years ago and is transforming it into a self-sufficient productive enterprise that helps 120 young people each year learn agricultural skills as well as how to run a self-sustaining business. With funding from Skoll, he is enhancing the school’s performance as a model that will be replicated not only at other Paraguayan agricultural schools, but also in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

For Martin Burt, satisfaction comes from bringing opportunities to others and watching them grow and bridge the gap between the world of the “have-nots” and the “haves.” He said, “It is magical to show that the world need not be governed by greed but by humanism.”

He explained, “Since we have demonstrated that an organization that gives loans to the poorest of the poor can be self-sustaining, we are now trying to prove that a school that provides tools to the poorest of the poor can also be self-sustaining. The model is systemic and self-sustaining: While learning by doing, they can also make a profit.” Describing how to leverage that model, he said, “Yesterday, microfinance; today agricultural education; tomorrow, water and housing.”

He draws inspiration from his paternal grandmother, who was active in the anti-fascist movement before World War II and later joined in resisting the Nazis. “She was persecuted and was imprisoned during the dictatorship,” Martin said. His father was also active in promoting Liberal Party ideas and creating a more just society.

After growing up in Paraguay, where he graduated from an American school, Martin went into the army and was selected to go to West Point at the age of 18. His appointment was vetoed by the president of Paraguay because of his family’s liberal party connections. Instead, he applied to more than 100 universities in the United States and wound up at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., where he studied public administration and met his future wife, a Californian. He later did graduate studies at George Washington University in science, technology and public policy.

Although his current work is in Paraguay, Martin isn’t confining his dreams to his native land. He became animated as he recalled a recent meeting with leaders from the Junior Achievement program at which he proposed adapting the entrepreneurship program for poor youth all over the world.

Martin’s approach is different from the traditional one in which Junior Achievement mentors from the middle and upper classes teach financially comfortable students the basics of business. “If you get a vice president from Citibank to come into a very poor school, the children there can’t visualize doing what that person is talking about. But if you get someone from their community—maybe a successful shoemaker—then they think to themselves, ‘I can do that.’ “

Martin’s confidence in others makes them believe in themselves. Although thousands have benefited from his work, he is most touched by individual examples, such as the barefoot farmer woman who took her son to the agricultural school and lingered to watch the students at work. “Can I come, too?” she shyly asked. “Of course,” Martin said

DID YOU KNOW?

• Paraguay is where all the major South American wars were fought.
  
• Paraguay suffered a major genocide and lost 75 percent of its population in 1870.
  
• Paraguay has been ruled by almost every kind of dictatorship.