Tag: microfinance
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Startup Offers Payday Advances Without the Pesky Loan-Sharking
Wired: Startup Offers Payday Advances Without the Pesky Loan-Sharking "… According to Palaniappan, the real culprit here is the very concept of the payday. The way he see is, there’s no reason people who already have done their work should have to wait several days, or even weeks, to get the money they’ve rightfully earned.…
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Kenya’s mobile telephones: Vital for the poor
Economist: Kenya's mobile telephones: Vital for the poor AFRICA'S "mobile decade", when telephones at last reached most corners of the continent, has meant a huge improvement in the lives of the poor. But quantifying it is hard. How useful can a mobile phone be to someone living on less than $2.50 a day, the World…
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Incubating women’s businesses in the Palestinian territories
Christian Science Monitor: Incubating women's businesses in the Palestinian territories Tomorrow’s Youth Organization based in Nablus, on the West Bank, helps promising new women's businesses survive. … TYO’s Women’s Incubation Services for Entrepreneurs (WISE) brought back six businesses that had developed a foundation from their initial women’s entrepreneurship program—Fostering Women Entrepreneurs in Nablus, and recruited…
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Extra credit
Boston Herald: Extra credit Program lets students lend a hand to local entrepreneurs. College students looking for real-world experience and a way to make a difference have a unique opportunity to immerse themselves in the world of microfinance. The Campus Microfinance Alliance is a nonprofit coalition of student-run microfinance groups that have lent more than…
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Sewing Her Way Out of Poverty
New York Times: Sewing Her Way Out of Poverty I came to Kenya partly to help make a PBS documentary about empowering women as a way to lift families and communities — men included — out of poverty. And I promptly met a prostitute-turned-businesswoman who epitomizes that theme. … … In Jamii Bora, Jane was…
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How Christianity and capitalism can ‘heal’ the world
USA Today: How Christianity and capitalism can 'heal' the world … This is why it's fascinating to see a rising current of people of faith and spirituality not taking poverty vows, not separating finance and faith, but embracing capital as a potent vehicle for the expression of their belief. You've heard of values voters; these…
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Can microinsurance protect the poor?
Guardian: Can microinsurance protect the poor? Low-cost insurance that covers the lives, health and property of the poor could provide protection against natural disasters. … Microinsurance, low-cost insurance policies that cover the lives, health, crops and property of the most vulnerable, are being seen as a central way of providing social protection to the increasing…
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What’s Better For Helping The Poor — Greed Or Charity?
NPR: What's Better For Helping The Poor — Greed Or Charity? Listen to the podcast here. Say you want to make loans to millions of poor women in the developing world, to help them climb out of poverty. Is it OK to raise money from rich investors, who expect to make a profit? Muhammad Yunus,…
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Can microfinance be both moral and profitable?
Fortune: Can microfinance be both moral and profitable? FORTUNE — There's a debate brewing in the world of do-gooder banking, pitting the father of microfinance Muhammad Yunus against a few entrepreneurs who have put an unlikely spin on Yunus' model of lending to the poor. Earlier this week, India's biggest microlender, SKS Microfinance Ltd., made…
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A better mattress
Economist: A better mattress Microfinance focuses on lending. Now the industry is turning to deposits. IT IS hard for people in the rich world to imagine what it is like to live on $2 a day. But for those who do, the problem is often not just a low income, but an unpredictable one. Living…