Creating a World Without Poverty

I recently read a book called, Creating a World Without Poverty, by Muhammad Yunus. He discusses ways that we can help poor people the most by giving them the power to help themselves. Dr, Yunus is a pioneer of micro-lending and his words inspired me to do what I can in my own little way.

I searched online for some place to help other entrepreneurs and found Kiva.org. And this is what I found:

Kiva's mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.

I then browsed through the volumes of entrepreneurs and decided to make my first loan to Clementine.

Here's Clementine's story. To be honest with you, I chose her because of her smile.:
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Clementine Kra is an ambitious woman. She was born in 1966 and is a single mother with 4 children. She lives in Port-Bouët, a very populous suburb in the south of Abidjan District with her mother, who takes care of the children when Clementine has to go to the market for her micro-business.

Clementine sells palm seed and various vegetable products in the Port-Bouët open-air market. She wants to be able to purchase products in bulk in order to wholesale them to retailers. She intends to increase her income so as to open a hairdressing shop in the long run, as she has got training in this field 2 years ago. Clementine is a good client who has repaid all the loans she has previously received from AE&I in a timely manner.
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Clementine has since paid off her loan in full and I decided to make more loans. Currently we have 9 loans - mostly to women entrepreneurs and on every continent except Antarctica.

Check out Kiva.org for yourself and be inspired by the amazing people, their stories and hope.