Loans That Change Lives

As multi-national corporations praise the benefits of globalization, the international Trade Unions Congress reports that the manner [specifically the laws under which the world-wide exchange of goods is being carried out] is short-changing the poor, driving them deeper into wretched poverty.

A few companies, like Starbucks, follow their own path and do not go along with the philosophy of making the powerless poorer just because they can.

However, the majority seem interested only in enriching their own pockets and the pockets of their shareholders to the maximum degree possible, despite the very real human cost as that extra margin of profit is extracted. Working with those corporations, is the World Bank, which has never made micro loans to the desperately poor. Yet as micro-lenders have proved, very poor people can use even very small loans to create small businesses and rise out of extreme poverty.

Thankfully, individuals and small, organized groups of people have come forth to help the poor help themselves.

One of these is Kiva.org. Praised by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Magazine, CNN Money, The Village Voice, the BBC and Business Week , Kiva acts as an intermediary between you and the very poor person you would like to help.

Through Kiva you can loan a person in a Third World country enough money to start a business and change his or her life. As the loan is repaid, you get your money back.

Imagine - you can change a life with as little as $25. Kiva works with local micro-lenders who screen applicants and approve business plans. All you have to do is choose a person whose business plan you want to support, then charge the amount you want to lend on your credit card and let your money get to work. As the loan is repaid, you get your money back.

This is a great way for us in the First World to share our immense blessings with those in the Third World whose raw materials and cheap labor have, for decades, enhanced First World lives.

Go to Kiva.org, make a loan of $25 today. Then give yourself a pat on the back for giving love in yet another way, just as you were sent here to do.

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As my Father sent me, even so send I you. John 20:21