国际英语新闻:Internet Opens World to Microloan Investors
The Internet is linking entrepreneurs in the developing world with investors in industrial nations through sites that broker small “people-to-people” loans. These so-called microloans go to family-owned businesses in Africa, Asia and other areas.
A $2 loan lets a woman in Burundi start a business brewing banana beer, and a $65 loan helped a woman in Pakistan start an embroidery business that now supports 30 local families.
These small entrepreneurs are featured in a multimedia exhibit called Half the Sky at the Skirball Cultural Center. Photographs, art and videos explain the plight of poor women in developing countries and how microloans are helping them.
Corporate donations to the center provide each visitor to the exhibit with $1 to get them started as investors. With help from a volunteer, this man has just invested in a small business in Africa.
The Internet microloan site Kiva is one of several partners in the project. Kiva's own website at kiva.org lets people invest small amounts of money in entrepreneurial projects from their homes, or any place with an Internet connection. The organization works through local micro-finance institutions in developing countries, and notes proudly that its clients’ repayment rate is over 98 percent.
Writer Bob Harris has invested in nearly 4,000 small businesses, and has visited many of them while researching a book about Kiva. “It's everything from clinics to schools to farmers, crafts people, urban transportation people - taxi drivers - pretty much anything you can come up with,” Harris said.
Some investors, like Armenian-American computer consultant Peter Tashjian, focus on a single region. He lends to Armenians so that those in cities can expand their businesses, and those in the countryside can buy an extra cow or sheep.
“And they actually are able to feed their families and make extra cheese and milk to sell in the markets,” Tashjian said.
Bob Harris got involved in microlending after exploring the world as a travel writer and seeing poverty in the shadow of exclusive resorts.
He has inspired a loose-knit group on the Kiva website called Friends of Bob Harris, whose members have invested more than $1.6 million.
“And everybody who does it for any length of time and reinvests the money, it’s really kind of cool … Let’s see, the bicycle delivery guy in Nicaragua paid me back. I think I’ll invest in this student in the Philippines,” Harris said.
These people say the Internet has forged new links, both social and commercial, that help others around the world pull themselves out of poverty.
相关文章
- 欧美文化:Sri Lankan military authorized to maintain law, order amid unrest
- 欧美文化:Russian FM visits Algeria to mark 60th anniversary of ties
- 欧美文化:Turkey, Kazakhstan aim to reach 10 bln USD in bilateral trade: president
- 欧美文化:Serbia, China commemorate journalists killed in NATO bombing 23 years ago
- 欧美文化:UN chief calls for end to "cycle of death, destruction" in Ukraine
- 欧美文化:Nearly 15 mln deaths directly or indirectly linked to COVID-19: WHO
- 欧美文化:Killings in U.S. Los Angeles on pace to top last year's high: media
- 欧美文化:South Sudan ceasefire may unravel due to hostilities: monitors
- 欧美文化:Zambia launches mechanism to accelerate private sector development
- 欧美文化:FBI director warns of consequences of U.S. crime spike: report