In 2010, UNIQLO started a social business* in Bangladesh with Grameen Healthcare Trust.

The social business will produce truly great clothing in Bangladesh and sell it at affordable prices for the poor. All sales proceeds are reinvested in the social business. Local residents are able to improve the quality of their lives and achieve financial independence by operating their own businesses under this system, which is intended to address social challenges through the production and sales of clothing in Bangladesh.

UNIQLO Grameen T-shirts and tote bags will be released at all UNIQLO stores and online stores on Friday, October 14 to commemorate the opening of the largest global flagship, the UNIQLO New York Fifth Avenue Store.

Three T-shirts designs will be available in unisex sizes S to XL for 1,500 yen each. The tote bags will also be available in three different styles for 990 yen.

Read more about this social business here and visit their website.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Economist Mohammad Yunus was the consummate storyteller, a fount of ideas on how to change Haiti.

Visiting from his native Bangladesh, the Nobel peace laureate poured out tale after tale Friday of how his concept of "social business" could apply to Haiti, a nation rife with woes well before last year's punishing earthquake.

Yunus told how he started his Grameen Foundation by lending $27 each to 42 illiterate women so they could pay off their debts, how a small yogurt business lessened malnutrition in Bangladesh and about the importance of creativity.

"There's a business world. There's a charity world," he told a hotel conference room crowded with college students and development workers. "Why can't we take those ideas and try to make money and also solve (social) problems?"

It was Yunus' first trip to Haiti, and he's certain to make more after he leaves Sunday.

The Grameen Creative Lab based in Germany, which he founded, opened an office in Haiti last year after the earthquake. It gave an $80,000 loan to a new vocational and computer-training school to cover startup costs, and it plans to hand out four more loans before year's end to other applicants with their own social business ideas.

Yunus, a celebrity in development circles for his ideas on helping the poor, recently joined a board of more than 30 philanthropists, former presidents and executives that seeks to advise Haitian President Michel Martelly on economic matters. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, also the United Nations special envoy to Haiti, is co-chairman.

Martelly and his advisers met with Yunus on Thursday on the grounds of the National Palace, still a crumbled heap of snow-white concrete almost two years after the January 2010 earthquake.

On June 28th, 2011 Yunus Centre announced an essay competition for university students in Bangladesh. The theme for the essay competition was "Achieving the MDG goals through social Business". Students had until July 31st to submit their essay. Yunus Centre then went through the submitted essays and shortlisted five essays, which were then forwarded to Professor Muhammad Yunus.

Professor Yunus then read the essays, and selected two winning essays. The result of the essay competion was announced on the 1st of September, 2011.

Yesterday, in a ceremony, all of the participants were presented with a certificate of participation.

Monica Islam (North South University) and Md. Jannatul Habib (Jahangirnagar University) are the winners of the Yunus Centre Social Business Essay Competition. They will travel to Vienna, Austria to attend the World Social Business Summit in November 2011 as their prize for winning.

By Thomas Kostigen

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (MarketWatch) - "If we change the banks' mind, the whole world will change," wrote Muhammad Yunus at the opening of Grameen America's New York City branch last year.

His timing couldn't be better. Yunus's Grameen America bank is betting that what worked on the streets of Bangladesh can work in the United States.

Grameen America provides small loans, known as microloans, and other financial services to individuals living below the U.S. poverty line who want to grow a small business.

As people occupy Wall Street among other places in the country in protest of the increasing dichotomy between the rich and the poor in America, and as the number of people living in poverty grows to record levels, a "Third World America" - as Arianna Huffington puts it - is indeed developing before our eyes.

Financial instruments geared to the less well-off should therefore be in high demand and should be looked at seriously by investors. In fact, it's exactly these types of vehicles that the "occupiers" on Wall Street should be embracing to effect change.

Blocking traffic is one way to gain attention, but that isn't going to change much, if anything, about the economy; Grameen's system would.

Here's how Grameen America works: An individual who lives below the poverty line selects four others in the same predicament and forms a group. Sponsored by Grameen America's bank, the group goes through a five-day financial training program and opens a savings account.

Each borrower gets a small business loan - no collateral or credit history required. Weekly group meetings are held with a credit manager. The borrowers begin to repay their loans and deposit savings.

Over the past year more than 7,000 loans have been disbursed totaling $24 million.

Muhammad Yunus, the acknowledged founder of the "microcredit" concept, is to be the featured speaker at the conference to be held at the Georgia Institute of Technology's Ferst Center, and is to present awards to the winners of a social business plan competition.

University system students who wish to participate in the competition must identify a social business opportunity; propose a solution including a business model and products, services and programs; develop a market analysis and strategy; explain how the strategy is to be launched; provide a sustainable financial plan and an overview of the social benefits.

Student teams are to prepare five minute presentations that are to be presented to judges who will be overseeing qualifying and final rounds in the competition. The business plans are to be submitted no later than Monday, Oct. 10. For more information about the registration and submission process, go here.

The judges include 21 national and local business and community leaders.

"We are delighted that Professor Yunus will help anchor this event," said USG Chancellor Hank Huckaby in a news release. "Our goal is to put together a number of key state players in economic development along with our talent in the University System to explore ways in which our partnership efforts can better benefit Georgia's economic recovery and possibly create the potential for new businesses and jobs."