“This is not charity. This is business: business with a social objective, which is to help people get out of poverty.” (Muhammad Yunus, Founder of Grameen Bank and Nobel Peace Prize recipient)

Microfinance is grounded in the belief that many poor people remain trapped in poverty due to a lack of access to credit and other financial services – and, conversely, that small capital injections can enable significant economic and social improvements for borrowers.

In 2014—15, with a grant from the UNIS Birthday Gift Fund this activity will be run in collaboration with Bloom Microventures - a nonprofit social business providing microcredit to entrepreneurs living below the poverty line in Vietnam - this is a Service Learning activity that supports students in becoming positive agents of change, while promoting the basic fundamentals of social enterprise and microfinance.

In this Service Learning activity students learn and explore the fundamentals of microfinance and social enterprise in tackling poverty; work closely with Bloom Microventures to identify individuals and groups in the community requiring microloans, and monitor and evaluate how the loans are used; take the lead in creating mini-enterprises that bring benefits to specific communities in Vietnam; and establish their own microcredit ‘bank’. In addition, students promote the use of microcredit in other UNIS Service learning activities.