Tag Archives: Microfinance

Microfinance Focus partners with Microcredit Summit Campaign s forthcoming Africa conference

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Bengaluru, Karnataka, December 1, 2009 /India PRwire/ — The Microfinance Focus, a global microfinance news portal with a monthly magazine, announced today that it has signed a media partnership with the Global Microcredit Summit Campaign for its forthcoming Africa/Middle East Regional Microcredit Summit (AMERMS) to be held in Nairobi, Kenya from April 7 to 10, 2010.

Microfinance Focus is a global knowledge centre for Microfinance, serving 60,000 microfinance professionals worldwide. It publishes a monthly magazine, daily news stories, articles and write-ups written by experts who are practitioners in the field.

The Global Micro Credit Summit Campaign, based in Washington DC, is an annual conference and event that brings together a wide range of financial and development experts from all over the world to learn and share developments in the micro credit sector. It is a project of the RESULTS Educational Fund, a U.S.-based grassroots advocacy organization.

Microfinance gained world-wide prominence when Dr. Muhammed Yunus and The Grameen Bank won the Nobel Prize for peace in 2006.

Commenting on the partnership, Mr. Vikash Kumar, publisher of Microfinance Focus, said, This is an important alliance for us as it recognizes the contribution our magazine has made to the field. To be selected as a partner with The Global Micro Credit Summit Campaign demonstrates the importance of the magazine as a key communication channel within the financial sector.

Jerome Peloquin, Managing Editor in the US, negotiated the relationship and is working closely with the Global Microcredit Summit Campaign and Sam Daley Harris, founder and principal spokesperson. Peloquin further explained, This is the fifteenth year the Global Summit has been held. It has become the premier annual meeting of micro credit development. This years theme will be microUP as a means to create sustainable lives free from poverty for every person on the planet.

The conference host in Nairobi, Kenya will be Jamii Bora, a proponent of microUP and the most successful urban based program in Kenya.

Notes to Editor

About Microfinance Focus:

Microfinance Focus is a global knowledge centre for Microfinance, focused on serving the international microfinance sector. It publishes a monthly magazine, daily news stories, articles and write-ups written by experts who are practitioners in the field. Microfinance Focus is also accessible from Google News and other prominent search engines. Its reach in the microfinance sector is vast and truly global. Its endeavor is to make it better and brighter for the microfinance community all over the world. To know more visit www.microfinancefocus.com

About The Microcredit Summit Campaign

The Microcredit Summit Campaign is a project of the RESULTS Educational Fund, a U.S.-based grassroots advocacy organization committed to ending hunger and poverty. The Campaign brings together microcredit practitioners, advocates, educational institutions, donor agencies, international financial institutions, non-governmental organizations and others involved with microcredit to promote best practices in the field, to stimulate the interchanging of knowledge, and to work towards reaching bold measurable goals. For more information please visit: http://www.microcreditsummit.org

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Source: India PR Wire

Travis Pastrana Joins Race 4 Change in Drive to End Poverty!

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Microfinance is one of the most powerful tools being used to fight poverty. It is finding greater support as a viable, ethical, and socially responsible business model serving the very poor. Since the birth of the movement in the 1970s many poor families have moved across the poverty line proving microfinance to be one of the greatest innovations for social good ever conceived!

Microcredit, also known as microfinance, continues to surge as a massive movement to increase human dignity by providing a tangible means for more than 100 million of the worlds poorest families to empower themselves economically. With access to financial services they couldnt get anywhere else, the poorest of the poor have proven themselves to be some of the most creditworthy entrepreneurs in life.

We couldnt be more pumped up to have Pastrana join us in our efforts to promote Microcredit, said Steven Funk, an American-born Canadian, founder of Race4Change, Co-Founder of the Dignity Fund, and Chair of the Advisory Board to the Microcredit Summit Campaign. Our mission is to drive a movement amongst road, rally, sports enthusiasts, and socially responsible people and organizations so that masses of people can unite, individually, to make change happen. We are racing towards a revolution that will unleash economic and creative innovation in the lives of millions powered by the engine of microfinance. It is a vital poverty fighting tool that improves healthcare, education, and the environment and moves the world from conflict and need to a more secure place of peace and prosperity. The prosperity brought by just a $45 loan is profound. Micro-entrepreneurs are empowered socially, economically and filled with dignity, one of the most powerful and rewarding human emotions. Better still, they repay their loans with interest, which allows microfinance to re-lend and be the gift that keeps on giving. As President Barack Obama has so aptly said, change comes from the bottom up. Funk is a co-driver of car #20 in the race.

Pastrana is a living legend when it comes to performance motor sports and weve all seen his fearlessness on his MTV show, Nitro Circus. He lives life to the fullest, planning to set a new world record for a car jump on New Years Eve and says, having been fortunate enough to travel to far off places, Ive seen poverty firsthand and am glad to be able to lend a hand in the crusade to end it. What I do is sometimes considered dangerous, but let me tell you that there is nothing more dangerous to an individual, a country, or our world than poverty.

I cant think of a more perfect superstar for this race and this cause, says Funk. His involvement will drive awareness among a younger generation, showing our youth that they collectively have the opportunity to do something HUGE right now – they can lead our children to only know poverty by studying it in history books.

This rally event was first held from May to June, 1953 as a celebration of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II on terrain through Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika. It was later renamed the East African Safari Rally. The event was part of the World Rally Championship (WRC) calendar for many years. The Kenyan Government and many supporters have now united together in an effort to restore the Rallys rightful WRC status.

With such tremendous philanthropic involvement from fresh supporters like Race4Change and Travis Pastrana, the Kenyan government and its people stand to benefit significantly from the positive attention that will accompany such a highly charged race and cause. The race sets the stage for the April 2010 Microcredit Summit being hosted in Nairobi.

Top supporters of Race4Change have the opportunity to win two fully paid round trip tickets to Kenya, with lodging and Microcredit Summit VIP tickets. The Summit has been described as the Davos of the movement and will bring several thousand advocates, supporters, and dignitaries from more than 60 countries, including Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the Queen of Spain, Queen Rania of Jordon, and many more longtime microfinance advocates to Kenya in April of 2010. Maybe even an American President will bestow dignity to the impoverished with an appearance.

Join www.race4change.org today as a co-driver, a pit crew member and a supporter of microfinance as this world class Rally runs over American Thanksgiving and help race for the end of poverty. Give a little of your support and thanks and rally together as a force to make a positive impact in the lives of hundreds of millions of the worlds poorest families. Create a better world.