How to Get Involved!

Microcredit consists of very small loans, often called microloans, to the unemployed, to poor entrepreneurs and to others living in poverty who are not considered bankable. These people typically lack collateral, steady employment and a verifiable credit history. They generally cannot meet even the most minimal qualifications to gain access to traditional credit. Microcredit is a part of microfinance, which is the provision of a wider range of financial services to the very poor.

Microcredit a financial innovation which originated in developing countries where it has successfully enabled extremely impoverished people to engage in self-employment projects allowing them to create a sustainable income and, in many cases, begin to build an enterprise and exit poverty. Due to the success of microcredit it is increasingly gaining credibility in the mainstream financial world.

Although almost everyone in larger development organizations discounted the likelihood of success of microcredit when it was begun in its modern incarnation as pilot projects with ACCION and Muhammad Yunus in the mid-1970s, the United Nations declared 2005 the International Year of Microcredit.

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