Small Change: How Fifty Dollars Can Change the World

Help people help themselves: That's the idea behind microcredit. Small loans-sometimes no more than $50-can radically improve the life of a poor family. Where development aid and billion-dollar loans fail, microcredit is emerging as the success story in the battle against world poverty. People who were previously considered "unbankable" no longer have to look to loan sharks for funding. With microcredit, they can become owners of small businesses. And it turns out they nearly always repay their loans on time. In many countries, professional organizations have become active in the field of microfinancing. To research this book, Kamp traveled to Kenya, Uganda, Bolivia and India to speak with the people who grant microcredit and those who receive it. Their stories make it clear that microcredit is a tremendous stimulus for economic and social development and, in particular, for people's self-awareness. Co-founder and editor-in-chief of Ode magazine, Jurriaan Kamp has published two previous books, Because People Matter: Building an Economy That Works for Everyone (2000) and It Is Possible (1998). Praise for Jurriaan Kamp's Because People Matter: "A wonderful and concise handbook of how modern economic theory has dealt a body blow to the prospect of a humane world. Jurriaan Kamp shows the vectors of change that can lead us away from being economic ciphers to a system that enlivens and redefines what it means to be a human being." PAUL HAWKEN, Environmentalist, Entrepreneur and Author of The Ecology of Commerce "A powerfully persuasive chronicle of why opposition to the current brand of globalization is certain to grow." JEFF GATES, Author of The Ownership Solution and Democracy at Risk ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Co-founder and editor-in-chief of Ode magazine, JURRIAAN KAMP has pubilished two previous books, Because People Matter: Building an Economy that Works for Everyone (2000) and It Is Possible (1998).