by Adam Lee Buller

Created on: June 04, 2010   Last Updated: June 05, 2010

“We have created a society that does not allow opportunities for those people to take care of themselves because we have denied them those opportunities“ This comment from Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus was an observation of what he saw and on a predominant scale we still see today in developing nations.

The people that inhabit these nations are prevented from increasing their standard of living due to the low wages which they are paid but do not have the means to help themselves and increase their earnings as they cannot access the necessary capital to set up a business for themselves.

Fortunately a means of providing this necessary start-up capital to those in developing nations who need it most has been pioneered in recent years with great success. This system has become known as Microcredit.

Microcredit schemes and websites connect people in the developed world to entrepreneurs in developing nations. Micro loans are provided to these entrepreneurs from one or indeed many willing volunteers, each loaning an amount they are comfortable with resulting in the loan being fully funded by one or more lenders. The amounts involved in this Micro Finance may seem insignificant to us in the developed world but can have a profound effect on the recipients in developing nations.

Take for example these 3 success stories taken from the website WWW.KIVA.ORG starting with Pendo from Tanzania,

“PENDO, age 27, was a kindergarten teacher until she had her second child 9 months ago. Seeing that her teacher’s salary would not be enough to support her household, which includes her younger sister, 2 children, and an assistant, she left teaching and began selling merchandise door-to-door. Still unable to provide enough to support her dependant family she requested a micro loan through www.kiva.org.”

With what result?

“Pendo paid back the loan successfully and her café business has grown as a result! The cafe which she opened using the loan is still doing well. She also bought stock for the café at a cost of about $44 and also used the loan to buy more cosmetics to sell door-to-door at a cost of about $53. Because of these changes, she was able to increase her profit from about $208 to around $520 a month. She is very happy about the increase and is thankful for the opportunity to help her family”

Another success story is that of Juana of San Pedro De Macorís, Dominican Republic

“JUANA, 68, has been

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