Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus promotes social business concept in Albania

TIRANA, Jan. 22 – Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus made a visit to Tirana this week, announcing he had decided to start a small social business in Albania. He came to the country to promote the government of Albania initiative of an all-embracing movement for implementation of the social business concept .
He also met with Prime Minister Sali Berisha. Yunus congratulated Berisha for his support to the Agency for Promotion of the Social Business and movement for implementation of Social Business in Albania. While Berisha said he expects that implementation of the social business in partnership with the Yunus Social Business Albania, commercial companies and academic institutions will address poverty problem, unemployment and other social concerns. The social business initiative is being launched through taking up issues of vocational education, agricultural products collection or employment of women in handicraft.
Yunus Social Business in Albania and Tirana Business Park, an investment of Germany-based Lindner Group, have teamed up to set up a vocational training school for the unemployed youth in Albania
Yunus, a Nobel laureate and founder of Grameen Bank, and Carsten Conrad, general manager of Tirana Business Park, signed a memorandum of understanding for the Vocational Training Social Business in the Albanian capital on Monday.
The center will initially train new plumbers, electricians and industrial mechanics, with more subjects being added in later years. The school will be sited on the Tirana Business Park campus and draw on the vast knowledge and expertise of these professions within Tirana Business Park and its German parent company. The vocational training center will be structured as a separate company clearly aligned with the principles of social business, with equity held by both Tirana Business Park and Yunus Social Business in Albania. The Lindner Group is Europe’s leading company for the building envelope, interior fit-out, insulation and construction-related services