News

ANNUAL REPORT 2019 YUNUS SOCIAL BUSINESS CENTRE – UNIVERSITA’ DI URBINO, ITALY

The Yunus Social Business Centre-Università di Urbino was established on May 20th, 2019 during the visit of Prof. Muhammad Yunus at University of Urbino, on the occasion of which the newly established Yunus Social Business Center - Urbino organized in his honor the world premiere of the "27 dollari" opera, dedicated to him and inspired by his book "Banker to the poor ".

During this period, in the year 2019 the Yunus Social Business Center - University of Urbino carried out the following activities.

-16 September 2019: Training Session of the Yunus Social Business Center - Urbino on the subject of microcredit for the high school teachers of the Province of Pesaro Urbino , Collegio Raffaello Urbino.

The Director of the Yunus Social Business Centre - Urbino Prof. Elisabetta Righini gave a lecture on the theme of legal discipline of microcredit in Italy during a training session for teachers of high schools of the province of Pesaro - Urbino (Italy)

-14 October 2019: Seminar on Financial Education and Microcredit with Iccrea Cooperative Bank Group and Federcasse. University of Urbino School of Laws.

The seminar brought microcredit, ethical finance and financial education, as tools to fight poverty, into the center of the debate of “# OttobreEdufin2019”, the Month of financial education of the Italian National Committee for Financial Education, and was organized by the Yunus Social Business Center - Urbino, in collaboration with the Iccrea Cooperative Banking Group (GBCI). The seminar was open to university students, professors and citizens and addressed the many aspects that bind microfinance, and microcredit in particular, with financial education.

On the speakers' stage, prof. Elisabetta Righini, director of the Yunus Social Business Center of Urbino, dealt with the topics not only from a legal, economic and financial point of view, but also by introducing reflections of a psychological nature related to behavioral economics.Chiara Piva, from Federcasse, talked about the Cooperative Credit and the "Microfinanza campesina", the program that for years the Italian Cooperative Credit has been supporting in Ecuador, where, thanks to the work done by the Ecuatorian Populorum Progressio Fund, thousands of families have defeated poverty.Marco Marcocci, representing the Iccrea Cooperative Banking Group, has outlined a picture of financial education initiatives carried out in Italy since the national strategy on the subject was launched, and subsequently exposed some credit access techniques practiced in many southern countries.

Particularly appreciated by the public was the participation of the soprano Felicia Bongiovanni, artistic director of the Yunus Social Business Center - Urbino and of the related Project "Business and Culture". The purpose of the "Business and Culture" Project is indeed to spread the knowledge of economic and social issues through art and culture, the highest expression of that humanity which must also shape economic activity in the noblest sense of the term.

-31 October 2019: The YSBC of Urbino University at the closing event of the Financial Education Month organized by the National Committee for Financial Education in Rome.

The University of Urbino was among the partners invited to participate in the closing event of the "Financial Education Month 2019" organized by the "Committee for the planning and coordination of financial education activities", which was held in Rome on October 31, 2019 at the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance.The Month of Financial Education is an initiative of the Committee that promotes free and quality opportunities, without commercial purposes, to increase the basic knowledge on the management and planning of personal and family financial resources, with moments of study, reflection, but that also of play, confrontation and entertainment on the management of savings, and on insurance and social security issues. The University of Urbino, through the Yunus Center of the Department of Law participated in the “#OctoberEdufin2019” with a seminar open to students and citizenship, organized in collaboration with ICCREA and Federcasse, on the theme of "Microcredit and financial education". The seminar was part of the "Business e Culture" Project, developed by the Yunus Center with the settin up of the contemporary opera "27 dollari", inspired by the life of the Nobel Prize Prof. Yunus.

During the event in Rome, M. Felicia Bongiovanni and Prof. Elisabetta Righini, Director of the Yunus Center in Urbino, presented to an audience of operators and financial industry experts the philosophy of their project, which through cultural and artistic initiatives, including mainly lyric opera, aims to promote occasions of knowledge on economic and social themes, for an integral promotion of the human person, in the tradition of that Renaissance humanism of which Urbino has been an example in the world.

-November 6, 2019: the Director of the YSBC Urbino participates in the plenary session on Social business and research at the Social Business Academia Conference in Berlin.

The Plenary Session on “Advancing Social Business Research” on Social Business Academia Conference, Day 2, was held in Berlin at Radialsystem on November 6, 2019. Chaired by Dr David Jordan, speakers were Prof Benedicte Faivre Tavignot, HEC Paris, Prof Giuseppe Torluccio, University of Bologna, Prof Timothy Hagen, Epoka University, Albania, Professor Pradeep Kumar Ray, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and the Director of YSBC Urbino Prof. Elisabetta Righini, Urbino University Italy. Later, at the Global Social Business Summit - The Gathering 2019 on the 7th of November 2019 at Café Moskau in Berlin, the Artistic Director of the YSBC - Urbino Felicia Bongiovanni performed, participating in the YYStage and singing some musical pieces, including "Nata due volte" from the lyric opera " 27 dollari" inspired by the life and work of Prof. Yunus.

-December 2, 2019: Seminar on “Microcredit and experiences of the Grameen Bank” at the Yunus Social Business Centre – Urbino.

On December 2, 2019, Yunus Social Business Centre - Urbino organized a seminar on "Microcredit and experiences of the Grameen Bank", for the students of the School of Laws and the School of Economics of the University of Urbino, with Roberto Boltri and Felicia Bongiovanni as speakers. During the seminar Dr. Roberto Boltri, international cooperation operator, told the students about his experience as a microcredit volunteer in Kazakhstan, where he has been working for many years, and where he had the opportunity to meet Prof. Yunus during a microcredit  initiative in favor of the women of the bazaar. M. Felicia Bongiovanni, Artistic Director of YSBC- Urbino, also reminded her experience with the lyric opera "27 dollari", inspired by the life and work of Prof. Yunus and by his book “Banker to the poor”.

- December 6, 2019: The women of the "27 dollari" opera among the heroines of Melodramma at the SOMS of Pesaro.

On December 6, 2019, in Pesaro at the headquarters of the historic "Società Operaia di Mutuo Soccorso”, workers’ mutual aid society founded in 1862 and inspired by the principles of mutuality, whose honorary  President was the famous composer Gioachino Rossini, the first interpreters of the lyric opera dedicated to Prof. Yunus, “27 dollari", Cristiano Cremonini and Felicia Bongiovanni (Artistic Director of YSBC – Università di Urbino) presented the latest book by the Bolognese tenor "Opera d'amore, Women of melodrama between literature, history and myth” (Pendragon Editions). Among the protagonists of the Italian music drama could not miss the women of "27 dollari" opera by Paola Samoggia and Rita Forlani, whom Prof. Yunus wanted to make protagonists of microcredit and of his work for social and economic upliftment.

For the next year 2020 the YSBC - Urbino is planning several initiatives including: the participation in the Urbino Creative Lab with a lesson on Social Business in February; a cycle of lessons for local high school students on the creation of social businesses; the organization of a series of seminars for the students of the School of Economics of University of Urbino which includes a competition about the creation of social businesses; the organization, in collaboration with the SPES Institute of Leuwen Belgium, of the international conference “Place Based Sustainability,
Ethics and Spirituality. Call for a New Economy Serving Life”that will be held in Urbino on 20-23 May 2020.

Urbino, 30 December 2019

Prof. Elisabetta Righini
Director YSBC – Università di Urbino