A few years ago, I found myself in Kigali, Rwanda presenting a plan to bring off-grid solar electricity to 10 million low-income East Africans. As I waited to speak to the president and his ministers, I thought about how I'd arrived in that same place 30 years before. A 25-year-old who left her career in banking to cofound the nation's first microfinance bank with a small group of Rwandan women. And that happened just a few months after women had gained the right to open a bank account without their husband's signature.
几年前,我在卢旺达的基加利 向 1000 万东非低收入人群 介绍了一项离网太阳能计划。 我正等待着与总统和他的部长交谈, 我回想起 自己 30 年前来到这个地方。 25 岁的我放弃了银行职业, 与一小群卢旺达妇女 创立了该国第一家小额信贷银行。 这发生的几个月前,当地女性获得了 独立开设银行账户的权利, 她们不再需要丈夫的签名同意了。
Just before I got on stage, a young woman approached me. "Ms. Novogratz," she said, "I think you knew my auntie." "Really? What was her name?" She said, "Felicula." I could feel tears well.
在我上台之前, 一位年轻的女性走近我。 “诺沃格拉茨女士,”她问道, “您应该认识我的阿姨。” “真的吗? 她叫什么名字?” 她回答道,“费力古拉。” 当时,我的眼眶就湿润了。
One of the first women parliamentarians in the country, Felicula was a cofounder, but soon after we'd established the bank, Felicula was killed in a mysterious hit-and-run accident. Some associated her death to a policy she had sponsored to abolish bride price, or the practice of paying a man for the hand of his daughter in marriage. I was devastated by her death.
作为首批国家女议员中的一位, 费力古拉是银行的联合创始人, 但在银行创立之后不久, 她就死于一次离奇的交通肇事逃逸。 有些人把她的死和她发起的 废除彩礼的政策联系起来, 彩礼是指付钱给一个父亲 来娶他女儿的习俗。 她的死让我震惊不已。
And then a few years after that, after I'd left the country, Rwanda exploded in genocide. And I have to admit there were times when I thought about all the work so many had done, and I wondered what it had amounted to.
几年之后, 我也离开了这个国家, 卢旺达爆发了种族灭绝事件。 我不得不承认, 我时不时就会想到 这些人所做的工作, 我不禁想知道, 这些工作的影响力。
I turned back to the woman. "I'm sorry, would you tell me who you are again?" She said, "Yes, my name is Monique, and I'm the deputy governor of Rwanda's National Bank." If you had told me when we were just getting started that within a single generation, a young woman will go on to help lead her nation's financial sector, I'm not sure I would have believed you. And I understood that I was back in that same place to continue work Felicula had started but could not complete in her lifetime. And that it was to me to recommit to dreams so big I might not complete them in mine.
我转身走向那个女人,问道, “对不起,你能再说一次你是谁吗?” 她回答说,“我的名字叫莫尼克, 我是卢旺达国家银行的副总督。” 如果你在我刚起步的时候告诉我, 在一代人的时间里, 一位年轻女性将会去 领导她国家的金融版块, 我不一定会相信你。 我也意识到 我已回到了原地, 去继续费力古拉已经开始 却无法在生前完成的工作。 对我来说,我也准备重新致力于 我此生也许无法完成的梦想。
That night I decided to write a letter to the next generation because so many have passed on their wisdom and knowledge to me, because I feel a growing sense of urgency that I might not finish the work I came to do, and because I want to pass that forward to everyone who wants to create change in this world in ways that only they can do. That generation is in the streets. They are crying urgently for wholesale change against racial injustice, religious and ethnic persecution, catastrophic climate change and the cruel inequality that has left us more divided and divisive than ever in my lifetime.
那天晚上我决定 给下一代孩子写一封信, 因为我的前辈们传承给我 不少智慧和知识; 因为我越来越有紧迫感 觉得我此生可能没法 完成我的使命; 还因为我想把它传递给 每一个想改变世界的人 以他们的方式改变世界。 我们的下一代 现在正在街上。 他们奔走呼吁 全面改革 来对抗种族不平等、 宗教和宗族迫害、 灾难性的气候变化、 和其他分裂分割我们的不平等。
But what would I say to them? I'm a builder, so I started by focusing on technical fixes, but our problems are too interdependent, too entangled. We need more than a system shift. We need a mind shift.
但是我能对他们说什么呢? 我是构建者, 我开始专注于技术修复, 但是我们的问题太相互依存了, 太相互纠缠了。 我们不仅需要系统变革, 我们更需要思想转变。
Plato wrote that a country cultivates what it honors. For too long, we have defined success based on money, power and fame. Now we have to start the hard, long work of moral revolution. By that I mean putting our shared humanity and the sustainability of the earth at the center of our systems, and prioritizing the collective we, not the individual I.
柏拉图曾写过,一个国家 会着重培养人民感到荣誉的事物。 长期以来,我们把成功 定义为金钱、权力和名誉。 现在我们得开始 艰难而漫长的道德改革: 把我们共享的人类社会和 地球的可持续性作为中心点, 优先考虑我们的集体 而不是个人。
What if each of us gave more to the world than we took from it? Everything would change. Now cynics might say that sounds too idealistic, but cynics don't create the future. And though I've learned the folly of unbridled optimism, I stand with those who hold to hard-edged hope. I know that change is possible. The entrepreneurs and change agents with whom my team and I have worked have impacted more than 300 million low-income people, and sometimes reshaped entire sectors to include the poor.
如果我们每个人对 这个世界的付出比索取更多? 一切将会改变。 愤世嫉俗者也许会说 这听起来太理想化了, 但是愤世嫉俗者不会创造未来。 尽管我知道盲目乐观是愚蠢的 我仍支持那些在艰辛中 抱有希望的人。 我知道改变是可能的。 我和我的团队一起合作过的 企业家和变革者 已经影响了超过 30亿的低收入人群, 有时候我们的努力重塑了整个领域, 来帮助穷人。
But you can't really talk about moral revolution without grounding it in practicality and meaning, and that requires an entirely new set of operating principles. Let me share just three.
但谈到道德变革, 你必须考虑到它的实用性和意义, 这需要新的操作准则。 我来分享三个。
The first is moral imagination. Too often we use the lens only of our own imagination, even when designing solutions for people whose lives are completely different from our own. Moral imagination starts by seeing others as equal to ourselves, neither above nor below us, neither idealizing nor victimizing. It requires immersing in the lives of others, understanding the structures that get in their way and being honest about where they might be holding themselves back. That requires deep listening from a place of inquiry, not certainty.
首先是道德想象力。 太多情况下, 我们习惯从自己视角看待问题, 即使是在为与我们 生活方式完全不同的人, 设计解决方案。 道德想象着眼于平等看待他人, 不在我们之上 也不在我们之下, 既不理想化他们 也不把他们当做受害者。 这需要我们走进别人的生活, 了解什么结构妨碍到了他们, 诚实地指出 他们可能阻碍自己的地方。 我们需要深度聆听, 询问对方, 而非固执己见。
Several years ago I sat with a group of women weavers outside in a rural village in Pakistan. The day was hot ... over 120 degrees in the shade. I wanted to tell the women about a company my organization had invested in that was bringing solar light to millions of people across India and East Africa, and I had seen the transformative power of that light to allow people to do things so many of us just take for granted.
几年前我与一群女织工 坐在巴基斯坦的一个乡村外面。 那天很热。 在树荫下也是超过48摄氏度的高温。 我想告诉她们 我投资的一家公司 给成千上万印度和东非的人口 提供了太阳能灯, 我看到了灯光变革的力量, 让那里的人们可以做 我们眼中理所当然的事情。
"We have this light" I said, "costs about seven dollars. People say it's amazing. If we could convince the company to bring those products to Pakistan, would you all be interested?" The women stared, and then a big woman whose hands knew hard work looked at me, wiped the sweat off her face and said, "We don't want a light. We're hot. Bring us a fan." "Fan," I said. "We don't have a fan. We have a light. But if you had this light, your kids can study at night, you can work more -- " She cut me off. "We work enough. We're hot. Bring us a fan."
“我们有太阳能灯”,我说道, “只花费7美金。 人们觉得这很棒。 如何我们能说服公司 把产品带到巴基斯坦, 你们都会感兴趣吗?” 这个女人凝视着我, 另一个身材高大 有着劳动人民双手的女人看着我, 擦去她脸上的汗水,说道, “我们不需要灯。 我们很热。 我们需要一个电扇。" “电扇,” 我说 “我们没有电扇, 我们有太阳能灯。 但是如果你有灯光, 你的孩子可以晚上学习, 你也可以工作更多…… ” 她打断我。 “我们工作足够多了。 我们很热。 给我们带来一台电扇吧。”
That straight-talking conversation deepened my moral imagination. And I remember lying -- sweltering in my bed in my tiny guest house that night, so grateful for the clickety-clack of the fan overhead. And I thought, "Of course. Electricity. A fan. Dignity." And when I now visit our companies who've reached over 100 million people with light and electricity and it's a really hot place, and if there's a rooftop system, there is also a fan.
这场直率的谈话加深了 我的道德想象力。 我记得自己躺在小旅馆床上 热得难受的那个晚上, 幸亏了头顶上的风扇可以解热。 我想通了,“当然。 电。 风扇。 尊严。” 现在,当我访问我们的公司, 现已为超过1个亿的人口 提供照明和电能, 在极热之地, 如果我们装了一个屋顶供电系统, 也会装一个电扇。
But moral imagination is also needed to rebuild and heal our countries. My nation is roiling as it finally confronts what it's not wanted to see. It would be impossible to deny the legacy of American slavery if all of us truly immersed in the lives of Black people. Every nation begins the process of healing when its people begin to see each other and to understand that it is in that work that are planted the seeds of our individual and collective transformation.
但是道德想象力也可以 重建和治愈我们的国家。 我自己的国家现在混乱不堪, 因为它终于开始面对 它不想面对的事情, 如果我们所有人 真正走进黑人的生活中, 我们会知道 美国奴隶制度的影响是无法抹灭的。 每个国家若要开始治愈自己 要等到人民看到彼此, 并明白现今我们的努力 正为个人和集体变革埋下种子。
Now that requires acknowledging the light and shadow, the good and evil that exist in every human being. In our world we have to learn to partner with those even whom we consider our adversaries.
这需要我们认清 存在于每个人心中的 阴与阳、善与恶。 在我们的世界中, 我们不得不学会 与我们的对手合作。
This leads to the second principle: holding opposing values in tension. Too many of our leaders today stand on one corner or the other, shouting. Moral leaders reject the wall of either-or. They're willing to acknowledge a truth or even a partial truth in what the other side believes. And they gain trust by making principled decisions in service of other people, not themselves.
这就引出了第二个原则: 保持相反的价值观的张力。 如今,太多的领导人 站在一个或是对立面, 大喊大闹。 但道德领袖 会拒绝“是非之墙”这一概念。 他们更愿意认同 对立方认同的 完整或部分事实。 他们做出有原则的决定来获取信任 为别人服务, 而不是为他们自己。
To succeed in my work has required holding the tension between the power of markets to enable innovation and prosperity and their peril to allow for exclusion and sometimes exploitation. Those who see the sole purpose of business as profit are not comfortable with that tension, nor are those who have no trust in business at all. But standing on either side negates the creative, generative potential of learning to use markets without being seduced by them.
要做好我的工作, 你必须把控局势: 信赖市场的力量来 保障创新和繁荣, 也要力争解决 市场中会出现的 排外和剥削现象。 那些把利益作为唯一目的的人 会对这种张力感到不适, 那些对企业完全不信任的人 也是同样看法。 但是,站在任何一边都会 否定并影响创意和生产力潜能, 我们要学习如何利用市场 而不是被它引诱。
Take chocolate. It's a hundred-billion-dollar industry dependent on the labor of about five million smallholder farming families who receive only a tiny fraction of that 100 billion. In fact, 90 percent of them make under two dollars a day. But there's a generation of new entrepreneurs that is trying to change that. They start by understanding the production costs of the farmers. They agree to a price that allows the farmers to actually earn income in a way that will sustain their lives. Sometimes including revenue-share and ownership models, building a community of trust. Now are these companies as profitable as those that focus solely on shareholder value? Possibly not in the short term. But these entrepreneurs are focused on solving problems. They're tired of easy slogans like "doing well by doing good." They know they have to be financially sustainable, and they are insisting on including the poor and the vulnerable in their definition of success.
拿巧克力举例。 这是一个千亿美元的产业, 依靠500万小农户, 而这些农户只能拿到 千亿美元中的极小部分。 实际上,90%的巧克力农户 一天只赚不到两美元。 有一代新企业家 尝试去改变。 他们开始了解农民的生产成本。 他们同意以更好的定价 让农民开始赚钱 来支撑他们的生活。 有时候包括让农户拥有 收益份额和所有权, 建立一个互相信任的社群。 这些公司会和 只专注于股东利益的公司 一样盈利吗? 这可能在短期不会发生。 但是这些新企业家 专注于解决问题。 他们厌倦了简单的口号例如 “利成于益。” 他们知道在财政方面 必须要可持续发展, 他们坚持包容穷人和弱者, 这是他们对成功的定义。
And that brings me to the third principle: accompaniment. It's actually a Jesuit term that means to walk alongside: I'll hold a mirror to you, help you see your potential, maybe more than you see it yourself. I'll take on your problem but I can't solve it for you -- that you have to learn to do.
这使我想到了第三个原则: 陪伴。 这是耶稣教会的一个名词 意味着一起同行: 我会为你举着一面镜子 帮助你看到自己的潜力, 也许会比你独自看到的更多。 我可以分担你的问题。 但是我不能为你解决—— 这是你必须学会做的。
For example, in Harlem there's an organization called City Health Works that hires local residents with no previous health care experience, trains them to work with other residents so that they can better control chronic diseases like gout, hypertension, diabetes. I had the great pleasure of meeting Destini Belton, one of the health workers, who explained her job to me. She said that she checks in on clients, checks their vital signs, takes them grocery shopping, goes on long walks, has conversations. She told me, "I let them know somebody has their back." And the results have been astounding. Patients are healthier, hospitals less burdened. As for Destini, she tells me her family and she are healthier. "And," she adds, "I love that I get to contribute to my community."
例如,在纽约哈林有一个组织 叫做“城市卫生局”, 他们会雇佣 没有医疗经验的当地居民, 训练他们来帮助其他居民 更好地控制慢性疾病,比如痛风、 高血压、糖尿病。 我很荣幸遇见了 德斯蒂尼·贝尔顿, 一位卫生工作者, 她向我解释了她的工作。 她说她要检查客户, 检查他们的生命体征, 带他们去杂货店购物, 陪他们散步、 聊天。 她告诉我, “我要让他们知道有人支持他们。” 这个项目的结果令人震惊。 患者变得更健康,医院负担也变少。 至于德斯蒂妮, 她告诉我 她和她的家人都更健康。 “而且”,她补充说, “我很高兴可以为我的社区服务。”
All of us yearn to be seen, to count. The work of change, of moral revolution, is hard. But we don't change in the easy times. We change in the difficult times. In fact, I've come to see discomfort as a proxy for progress.
我们所有人都渴望被看到, 被包括在内。 变革, 道德变革, 很艰难。 人们不会在轻松的时候做出改变, 我们会在艰难的时候改变。 事实上,我已经把不舒服 看作是进步的代表。
But there's one more thing. There's something I wish I'd known when I was just starting out so many years ago. No matter how hard it gets, there's always beauty to be found.
但是还有一件事情。 我希望在多年前, 我刚起步时就能知道的事。 无论有多困难, 总有美好会被发现。
I remember now what seems a long time ago, spending an entire day talking to woman after woman in the Mathare Valley slum in Nairobi, Kenya. I listened to their stories of struggle and survival as they talked about losing children, of fighting violence and hunger, sometimes feeling like they wouldn't even survive. And right before I left, a huge rainstorm poured down. And I was sitting in my little car as the wheels stuck in the mud thinking, "I'm never getting out of here," when suddenly there was a tap on my window -- a woman who was beckoning me to follow her, and I did. Jumped out through the rainstorm, we went down this little muddy path, through a rickety metal door, inside a shack where a group of women were dancing with abandon.
我记得很久以前, 我会花一整天和 一个又一个当地的妇女交谈, 就在肯尼亚内罗毕的 马萨雷贫民窟。 我倾听她们讲述 自己奋斗与生存的故事: 失去孩子, 与暴力与饥饿作斗争, 或是感觉无法生存下去时。 就在我离开之前, 一场暴雨倾盆而下, 那时我正坐在我的小车里, 我的车轮陷进泥土, 我想着,“我永远不会离开这里了。” 突然,有人在我的窗户上轻敲了一下: 一个女人向我招手让我跟着她, 我照做了。 从暴雨中跳出来, 我们沿着这条泥泞的小路走着, 通过摇摇欲坠的金属门, 进到一个棚屋里, 一群女人正在忘我地跳舞。
I jumped in and found myself lost in the rhythm and the color and the smiles and suddenly I realized: this is what we do as human beings. When we're broken, when we feel that we are failing or are in despair, we dance. We sing. We pray. Beauty resides too in showing up, in paying attention, in being kind when we feel like being anything but kind. Look at the explosion of art and music and poetry in this moment of our collective crisis. It is in the darkest times that we have the chance to find our deepest beauty.
我加入了她们,迷失在节奏、 五光十色和笑容中, 我突然意识到: 这是我们人类应该做的。 当我们支离破碎时, 当感到挫败或是绝望时, 我们跳舞, 我们唱歌, 我们祈祷。 美存在于你的参与, 存在于你的关注, 出现于你无法善良对人时 仍坚持自己的善意。 看看,艺术、音乐和诗歌的爆发 常出现于人类遭遇集体危机的时刻。 在至暗时刻, 我们才有机会探索最深层次的美丽。
So let this be our moment to move forward with the fierce urgency of a new generation fortified with our most profound and collective wisdom. And ask yourself: what can you do with the rest of today and the rest of your life to give back more to the world than you take?
让这成为我们的时刻 继续前进, 带着新一代变革者的紧迫性, 装备着我们深刻和集体的智慧。 然后问问你自己: 自己今天剩下的时间可以做什么 余下的生命中可以做什么 让自己对世界回报比索取更多?
Thank you.
谢谢大家。