There is a fantastic article in the UUWorld magazine about the power of "microcredit" - small unguaranteed loans to third-world craftspeople - to create economic opportunity and social justice in places that we sometimes think of as "impossible". Go have a read: The microcredit revolution. Some excerpts:

In fact, lending money to people living in poverty is good business. Mark Malloch Brown, administrator of the United Nations Development Program, says repayment rates of up to 97 percent in some developing countries have been the envy of big banks and other financial institutions. “Indeed,” Brown says, “we should not forget that most businesses everywhere start with just one or two people and grow from there—transforming economies all over the world.”

...

Morrow recalls a woman who was part of one of the first banks All Souls funded. She made beautiful dresses for little girls, which she then sold in the local market. Each dress took her a week to make, and she was constantly struggling to make ends meet. With the sewing machine and additional supplies she bought with her loans, she can now make twenty-five dresses a week. The money she earns has helped her family move out of poverty.

...

Each week they could produce six dozen pairs of shoes, earning $500 per year, far below the country's average annual income per person of $904. Cáceres heard about a local FINCA community banking group called Milagro de Dios, or Miracle of God, from a neighbor and decided to join. Her first loan was $74. She repaid and borrowed four more times, buying important assets for her business: two industrial sewing machines, a polisher, and a used vehicle to travel to the market. Each time she was able to repay her loan and save, enabling her to borrow more the next time, for a total of $1,650 over five cycles. Cáceres's shoemaking business now has ten full-time employees, and her annual income has risen to $4,000.

It's nice to see a glimmer of hope in a world full of despair.