Here I am in Morocco. For three months, I’ll be working for Al Amana, the largest microfinance institution (MFI) in the country. Despite Morocco’s status as a middle-income country ($3,800 GDP per capita), its poverty rate is a shocking 19% due to the expansive rural zones where 65% of the population live on less that $2 a day. Due to the dire conditions, local NGOs began to take interest in development via microfinance the 1990s, following the lead of successful implementation of other microfinance ventures such as the Grammeen Bank in Bangladesh that pioneered microfinance in the 1970s.
Places
Al Amana: Microfinance in Morocco
September 23rd, 2009 by HannahNurturing Minds in Tanzania
September 23rd, 2009 by Hannah
On the Train from Lisbon to Madrid
September 5th, 2008 by Editors
It was on a train in the middle of the night from Lisbon to Madrid that I started to read The Year of Magical Thinking. In it, Joan Didion said that one characteristic of successful people is that they believe anything can be resolved with a phone call, or a letter or a visit to the right person. They do not take “no” for an answer. It’s not stubborn or arrogant; it’s that “no” just doesn’t happen to them that often, so when it does, they don’t take it seriously…
Spanish Water in Curacao
September 5th, 2008 by Janera SoerelZadar’s Water Music
August 22nd, 2008 by EditorsThe impulse to promenade is strong in Croatian culture. In almost every limestone Old Town dotting the country’s coastline, promenades fill daily in the late afternoon. By the time the weekend rolls around, from morning until night these walkways are particularly dense with humanity: families, gangs of teenagers, couples, solo strollers, and of course the [...]
