It’s been quite a number of years since I first read of a powerful and relatively new force in our world: microfinance.
What I learned about (from a magazine article) was one particular organization in this field: Women’s World Banking. Here’s how it works: the [microfinance] bank loans the price of an expensive restaurant meal (or a few such meals) to a hardworking woman in a Third World country or a developing nation. Someone who under normal circumstances will almost never see any spare cash — at all — accumulate within her lifetime. But having the cash as seed money, she will grow a small business, pay back the loan, maybe borrow some more; and a few years later she and those around her will be enjoying a quantum leap in their quality of life, albeit always with continuing hard work. But work that now offers hope beyond just surviving another day.
In honor of Senator Hillary Clinton’s historic presidential campaign, I’d like to post a little info about microfinance. Maybe there are others like me who didn’t know about it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women’s_World_Banking
I suppose some people might ask, why focus on helping women? (Seriously, some would probably ask that.) For one thing, it’s been proven that this way works. At the risk of some reverse sexism, my personal observations suggest that, all things being equal, the woman might be more likely to persist and succeed with the nurturing enterprise, with a smaller chance of monies being spent on liquor, cigarettes, and gambling. If you look at the general run of humanity throughout the ages. Well, end of sermon. But microfinance deserves to be widespread, and widely known.
Speaking of the Clintons, former President Bill Clinton is mentioned in this article which also gives a great overview of microfinance at work around the world:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/30/MN7QRSUKA.DTL&tsp=1
