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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Microfinance week: Vittana

I think, this might be my favorite organization of the week. Vittana is a global student microloaning organization, which is organized through peer to peer lending. You put money into your account, then you find a student to loan money too, after the student graduates they begin repaying their loan, once you receive the money back the process starts all over again. While looking the company up, I came across a short article in the Economist talking about student loans, microfinance, and Vittana, and if the Economist thinks this is a good idea that is good enough for me.

In many countries, their is no access to student loans because they are risky and their is no government program either. A student might be accepted to school, but unable to pay so they will not have the chance to learn and contribute, which is just not acceptable. That is why I think this organization is so wonderful, it is helping a person achieve a livelihood. They tend to target second year students with a record of attendance or children of those benefiting from other microloans as they will have a family history of repaying the loan to lower the risk. The Vittana community has lent $516,452 and has an excellent repayment rate of approximately 97%.

"When you invest $25 in a student on Vittana, we promise you that your full $25 loan is given to the student. Neither Vittana nor our local microfinance partner subtracts any fees or any other surcharges in any form from your loan. Vittana also charges no interest or fees in any other form from the student or local microfinance partner. After making a loan to a student, you have the opportunity to donate as much (or as little) as you want to Vittana itself. This donation is completely optional — you are under no obligation whatsoever." -How it works

This week, we are running a bit of a contest. Whichever organization's blog post for the week has the most posts is the microfinance organization that I will donate $25 to. So far this week, Vittana is my favorite, but what do y'all think?

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