Martin Burt – Fundación Paraguaya

Victor "Global X" d'Allant
Former Executive Director, Social Edge

At last year’s Skoll World Forum in Oxford, Global X ran into Martin Burt, the social entrepreneur who launched Fundación Paraguaya. They met again a few days ago in Zurich, and Global X asked him a few questions about his work.

Martin Burt describes a key concept that explains his success: model replication, "the same principles that apply to microfinance: if you treat poor people with dignity, they will get out of poverty. We are trying to apply that to education."

As Martin Burt explains at 3’37" in this five-minute interview: "With dignity, with appropriate finances and the appropriate curriculum, you can turn a poor, 15-year old rural adolescent girl into a rural entrepreneur by the time she is 18, a person who can get a good job in the private sector or make her own job."

Martin Burt’s goals at Fundación Paraguaya: to move "from poverty alleviation to poverty elimination."

To conclude the interview, Global X asks Martin Burt to share a piece of advice: "Concentrate very methodically on sustainability. All the doors open when you have operational, thematic and financial sustainability." Otherwise, it’s not social entrepreneurship, but charity.

¡En español!