When the kids they teach are able to set up their own businesses, their villages will be able to afford to drill wells and install purification centers. I kind of believe that uplift through building a tax base is better than uplift through an infusion of aid, long term.
Shava,I definitely agree that uplift through building a tax base, or helping them become entrepeneurs is the best way. Do you know about www.kiva.org or www.globalgiving.com, which allows you to help make loans for people in developing countries around the world?
Definitely agree, Shava. I read something somewhere about someone (Gawd, it's late) about a teacher in the ghetto who found his ghetto students were excellent entrepreneurs. NO BIG SURPRISE. They grasped the principles better than the Harvard students and created projects that worked. I think the fellow is a high school teacher at an inner city school in L.A. Bit off the topic, but related.
There are a lot of international microfinance efforts, Carol -- a directory of them is here. My favorite old school project is the Grameen Bank, pioneers in this area in Bangladesh. The local "bank branch" usually consisted of a palm pilot with a cell modem, and an older, savvy woman who was given about US$50 to invest in her community according to the bank's rules -- which included a lot of the relatives signing off on any loan, making it an issue of honor.
Unfortunately, Kathryn, often enough the only entrepreneurial projects ghetto kids have access to are in the black market -- guns, drugs, sex, and onward. Every street corner can be a place of business in some neighborhoods.
But it's clear that a lot of these kids grow up understanding models of bootstrapping a business (and multi-level-marketing, if you look at the drug trade!) from very early on.
They just don't have access to capital or conventional business culture. No wonder they do well, given a decent chance!
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Comments: 5
There are a lot of international microfinance efforts, Carol -- a directory of them is here. My favorite old school project is the Grameen Bank, pioneers in this area in Bangladesh. The local "bank branch" usually consisted of a palm pilot with a cell modem, and an older, savvy woman who was given about US$50 to invest in her community according to the bank's rules -- which included a lot of the relatives signing off on any loan, making it an issue of honor.
Unfortunately, Kathryn, often enough the only entrepreneurial projects ghetto kids have access to are in the black market -- guns, drugs, sex, and onward. Every street corner can be a place of business in some neighborhoods.
But it's clear that a lot of these kids grow up understanding models of bootstrapping a business (and multi-level-marketing, if you look at the drug trade!) from very early on.
They just don't have access to capital or conventional business culture. No wonder they do well, given a decent chance!