Nobel Peace Prize Award Ceremony 2006 [Windows Media Player] http://nobelprize.org/award_ceremonies/ceremony_oslo/video/2006/index.html Grameen [pdf, Windows Media Player http://www.grameen-info.org/ The Microcredit Summit Campaign [pdf] http://www.microcreditsummit.org/ Web-Based Microfinancing http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/magazine/10section4.t-6.html?ex=1323406800&en=72e9b0bb93393330&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss Kiva.org: Loans that change lives http://kiva.org/ This Sunday, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize was formally awarded in equal parts to Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below." In his remarks, Yunus commented "Grameen has given me an unshakeable faith in the creativity of human beings. This has led me to believe that human beings are not born to suffer the misery of hunger and poverty." Over the past thirty years, Yunus and his colleagues at the Bank have championed the cause of microcredit lending. The idea behind microcredit lending is relatively simple, and it has seen its greatest application in the developing world. Essentially, it involves making small loans to people so that they can engage in any number of self-employment projects, such as selling foodstuffs or engaging in the small-scale production of goods. When the Bank was founded thirty years ago, there were many who maintained that the Bank was lending to people who would never be able to repay their small loans, much less generate a profit. While some skeptics maintain that microcredit lending may encourage national governments to focus less on providing a social service safety net, others remain adamant about the benefits of these programs. The first link will take users to a NPR report on Yunus and the Nobel speech he gave this past Sunday. For those whose interests are piqued by the first link, the second link leads to Nobelprize.org, where they can watch a video of the entire award ceremony. The third link leads to the homepage of the Grameen Bank. Here visitors can learn about their lending practices and philosophy and they can also find a selection of writings by Yunus. The forth link leads to the homepage of the Microcredit Summit Campaign, which is based in Washington, DC. Moving along, the fifth link leads to a news article from Sunday's New York Times on how various groups are using the power of the web to bring microfinancing to more and more people. Finally, the last link leads to Kiva.org, which is a website where people can assist persons seeking a microcredit loan in making their businesses a reality.