Giving opportunity

And, just like every single one of the millions of Brazilian people unfortunate enough to be from a favela, Melo had longed to get out and help.

When he was young, and Brazil was governed by a military dictatorship, the Catholic Church was one of the only organizations that effectively helped the poor. Because of that, he joined the church in Fortaleza, a city on Brazil's Northeast coast, and, while still in seminary school, he started helping the poor by living amid the squalor of those in Fortaleza who survive by picking garbage.

"I spent six months living on the dump with the garbage pickers. I think that this is the most moving, most humbling experience a person can have. In the dump, you cannot tell the difference between the human beings, the animals – mostly vultures – and the rubbish itself," Melo says.

It was also in the dump that he realized that he would do anything to help people help themselves.

"It's the bottom of the pit. There are only two possibilities: either you give up living altogether or you fight with all your might. I chose the second option, and to do it collectively. Organizing other people to find a way out to­gether," Melo says.

Less than half a year later, he moved to Conjunto Palmeira, a slum on the outskirts of Fortaleza, where many of the 30,000 inhabitants lived without ­proper water supplies, electricity, drains or sewers. There, Melo became increasingly involved in community initiatives. He helped improve life for the whole community by organizing those living there to institute garbage collection and build a water system, and roads. As time passed, his social work had less and less to do with the church. Instead, he became increasingly aware of the central role of economics and finance in poverty, and this led, eventually, to the creation of the Banco Palmas ­(People's Bank) in 1997.

The Banco Palmas banking system is a community-based economic system ­offering lines of micro-credit for local producers and consumers in the form of credit cards and its own form of social currency called Palmas. The currency, pegged to Brazil's tender, the real, is accepted and recognized by neighborhood producers, storekeepers, and consumers. It facilitates the sale of goods within the community, supports economic growth, and builds a sense of solidarity for those living there.

Melo's goal with Banco Palmas was to create a sustainable, virtuous local economic circle in Conjunto Palmeira. He has been successful. Since 1997, the number of businesses in the community has increased by 40%. The bank has created 300 jobs directly and another 600 indirectly in businesses that were given micro-credits.

Melo's initiative and Brazil are not alone. A number of factors, including globalization, have had a powerful impact on poor countries and their ability to reduce poverty. According to data from the World Bank, "overall ­economic growth in the developing world has ­averaged 4.8 percent a year since 2000, more than double the rate of growth in high-income economies, which averaged 2% a year."

Yet, despite the recent spate of economic growth, there is an increasing awareness of the gap between the rich and poor in many countries. According to the World Institute for Development Economics Research, the top 1% of the world's population owns 40% of the globe's net worth, while almost half of the world's population (2.8 billion) own merely 1.1% and live in poverty. This makes innovative approaches to social change, like Melo's, imperative to solving social issues in the twenty-first century.

One non-profit organization which seeks out and invests in the most innovative approaches is Ashoka – a global network of the world's leading social entrepreneurs. These are men and women such as Melo who actively solve the world's most urgent social problems. Since 1981, Ashoka has elected over 1,800 leading social entrepreneurs as Ashoka Fellows, providing them with living stipends, professional support, and access to a global network of peers in more than 60 countries.

"The Ashoka grant put me in contact with a network of people like myself who fight for a better world and ­better appreciation of human life … Ashoka provided me with funds for three years, allowing me to dedicate myself to my social work full-time," Melo said.

In 2004, the Ashoka Fellowship elected Melo, and in 2005, he won the first Visionaris award, which recognizes individuals in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico who have created an organization that addresses a significant social challenge in an innovative way.

This award and others, combined with the recent wave of philanthropic contributions being made by successful executives and entrepreneurs the world over, do leave tangible signs of progress – and, beyond that, hope.

As Melo says: "I used the Visionaris award to build the Banco Palmas retail outlet, which helps the small producers from the neighborhood sell their ­products".