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
3 Comments:
this is an awesome idea.
where's the afghan tech-house DJ I can float 100 bills to start up a Friday night monthly party in Kunduz or Mazar-E Sharif, Afghanistan?
let's do it! otto
A 3rd world beat kitchen serving tasty spoonfuls of breakbeats to flava-starved villagers! After a few tracks they'll forget all about their war-torn homes and stop freaking out about devastated crops, because they'll be too busy getting their freak on.
Get the UN on the phone.
By order of the prophet
We ban that boogie sound
Degenerate the faithful
With that crazy casbah sound
But the bedouin they brought out
The electric camel drum
The local guitar picker
Got his guitar picking thumb
As soon as the shareef
Had cleared the square
They began to wail
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