Do-It-Yourself Foreign Aid!
First off, this might be the greatest thing I've seen in a long while.This morning I'm sitting there reading the NYTimes, and I see Nicholas Kristof's column about poverty in Afghanistan. He talks about Kiva, a small microfinance non-profit organization started in 2004 by a couple who traveled through Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda (exactly the countries where I'm going to be traveling to in a coupla months). So I checked into it, and it's legit.
The idea's ridiculously simple: You find an entrepreneur in a developing nation, learn a bit about the business they're starting up, and if you dig their business model you lend them some money through Paypal. In a year or two, they pay you back 100%. Then you withdraw your money. Or you can lend more to somebody else. They have a repayment rate of 100%.
The world's flat, kids. Yay the internets.
Maybe someone can make a microloan to Duke so they can buy themselves some real basketball players. Snap.
posted by G-Train @ 4:06 PM
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