zapped into this TV report on microfinancing:
Mikro-Kredite
Basically, microfinance provides loans and insurance to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.
An alternative and maybe more effective way to fight poverty…
These two institutions were mentioned in the report:
OikoCredit
Procredit Holding
[update] Another similar institution is:
Opportunity International Bank of Malawi
see also Mike’s blog entry
Hello, i found your blog searching by the net, i’m alessandro and with my wife Valeria moving in 14 September to Balaka (Malawi) and stay ther for an year. I think we can have with you a friendlyship on the net. So now yuo can see my personal blog:
http://spaces.msn.com/members/ale1977italy/
later in few days you can see the official site with the details of the project in Malawi at the url:
http://www.aeper.it/malawi.html
i hope we can be friends and pheraps we can meet in Malawi.
alessandro
Ah thank you. That was actually answering a large part of my question. It is indeed striking and very interesting that most efficient help seems to come from organisations that don’t loose too many words on what could be done and that don’t go and let money run through too many filters.
I for my part am critical about aid that is tied to religious matters or any other than the primary interest to help those in need, even though the help provided knows [hopefully] no boundaries. But if given the choice between the prospect of dark channels vs. religiously influenced aid, I’d rather stay with the latter.
i don’t know enough about OIBM to really answer all of your questions. Maybe Mike or Claudia will help answer some of them.
But, I don’t have any problem with a bank supporting christian teachings and building churches. Better than supporting money-laundering of drug money. Or Mr. Abacha and co.
Non-governmental christian organisations tend to be more effective in reaching out to communities. They are more grass-roots orientated than other approaches. And tend to spend less money for administration, i.e. more help reaches the poor.
Throughout the years, christian schools and hospitals have served all Malawians from all religious backgrounds.
Church buildings also help communities in practical ways. During the week the buildings are often used by privately-owned schools.
(I’m biased: I’m a christian and believe in christian values.)
And before you decide to invest in one of the above mentioned micro-finance institutions, please do your own research and find out for yourself if it’s an option for you…
So, here I found it back – it’s a post from April 17 with comments closed: ” It will be about
giving a foundation of financial, spiritual and moral education to
people who are eager to work hard and let their lights shine.”
These are actually the word of the third blog – it sounds very hard*core missionary to me. Does that hold true for the bank itself? Just wondering.
Somewhere on that blog it says OI is a Christian organization [in quoting actually a post from yet another blog]; so it is loans for, among other, Christian teachings? I’d like to know what the conditions are. Giving loans, but in exchange to that the building of Missionary centers, religious schools…what is the concept looking like?
And, can’t a bank just work in loans without all the missionary work?
Thanks Mike for the link. I faintly remember reading your entry a couple of weeks ago. I’ve added the link to my entry above.
Did you see my post about MF in Malawi?
http://www.vdomck.org/blog/?p=38
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