A Little Story

PASSION for Poverty Reduction

​​Paulo Bento has a passion for poverty reduction since his infancy. Also an enthusiast of drawing and painting, he had a drawing published, with a comment in which one can read "Paulo, 11, is very focused on the problems of poverty, unemployment, and hunger. His great theme, already grounded in his young spirit, is this. Wickie is just a passing visit on that theme. It was Wickie as it could have been Heidi." 

In this drawing, we can find some messages (in Portuguese), such as
"Queremos trabalho" | "We want work",
"Abaixo o desemprego" | "Down with unemployment", and "Queremos pão, temos fome" | "We want bread, we are hungry".​​​​
​ 
​​At that time, of course, Paulo never imagined that, some years later, he would be defending a Ph.D. thesis on Poverty Reduction through Social Entrepreneurship (a concept that, at that time, was yet unknown). It is because of "coincidences" like this one that Paulo frequently likes to say that "The Universe seems to be so amazingly well organized."