microloan program

• Planting Seeds to Outgrow Poverty

Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime. It's missing something. Microfinance is the fishing rod, the boat and the net. "Oftentimes, the question I get is '[Marian Deegan], we have so much poverty here, why not look after things in this province first?' There is merit there, but we also have to understand it is one world and one people. "It's an incredible investment -- it's not a disbursement."

Opportunity International finds microloans blossom into economic independence . You give a do..., began the first Opportunity program in Latin America when people told him "We need wor...

• Winnipeg Free Press
• December 02, 2009

• Keep Up the Good Works

That's the only way to keep it going," [Mike Green] says, adding the rate is much lower than those offered by loan sharks, usually the alternative to banks for poor people in need of credit. By providing the village bank with a source of income from interest payments, the bank can directly create jobs (loan officers and bank clerks) and it becomes an autonomous financial institution, managed by villagers for villagers. "We don't decide (who gets a loan). They decide. Twenty women gather at the village bank and you can't get into that village bank without an invitation from the other women," says Green, a software entrepreneur who volunteers his time with FINCA. "They vet themselves and FINCA doesn't worry whether it's a great business idea or not. If the other women say they trust this...

..."I'm an entrepreneur, so that's why this program appealed to me," says Marshall, owner of marketing...Other not-for-profit microloan institutions have also been providing access to cr...

• Winnipeg Free Press
• December 23, 2009