Canadian in race to empower the poor

The more a society’s workforce is empowered, the more likely it is going to be peaceful. When people have something to lose, they’re less likely to be involved in conflict,” he said. He offers hope to poor families who may think the world has collapsed on them: “Don’t give up. If you believe in what you are doing, you can get out of poverty. If you believe you can make a better life for you and your children, you will do it.

“But you don’t just have to believe; you have to think. And you can go borrow money from microfinance institutions.” After completing his education at Purdue University in Indiana and the University of Iowa and becoming a dentist, he spent only one year on the job before he quit to become a messenger running errands for a Canadian real estate magnate.

He knew his father had struggled to put him through school with hopes that he would become a lawyer or a doctor – or at least a dentist – and he tried to please him. But he had other interests. Funk had moved to Canada to do his residency at Vancouver General Hospital where he earned about 1,500 Canadian dollars a month.

He met Nelson Skalbania through his landlord and left dentistry for 3,500 Canadian dollars a month to become the magnate’s private messenger. His father thought he had gone crazy. “My father was surprised after I told him I had quit my profession and become a gofer, which is a polite word for messenger,” he said. “But I told him oral surgery wasn’t for me. I wanted something exciting.”

Mr Skalbania would mentor his employee so well that by the time they parted ways after the tycoon’s empire Skalbania Enterprises collapsed in the early 1980s, Funk would use the skills learnt to start his own business and become not only a top-flight international real estate investor but a microcredit financier as well.

smburu@nation.co.ke