Microcredit Workshop Focuses On Community Lending Needs, April 27

Date: 4/26/07
Contact: Kelly Uphoff 438-3515, kuphoff@gmail.com 

A workshop focusing on microcredit as an alternative to predatory lending in the local community will be held at Illinois State University on Friday, April 27. The workshop will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the Bone Student Center Old Main Room.

The workshop is being hosted by the Applied Community and Economic Development Student Association at Illinois State’s Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development. Co-sponsors for the event are the Economic Development Council of the Bloomington-Normal Area and the Hunt Family Fund.

The interactive workshop will bring together local bankers, religious leaders, community activists, social service providers, elected officials, and academics to discuss anti-predatory lending initiatives and microcredit, and begin a community-wide discussion on ways in which microcredit can be a successful anti-poverty strategy in the local community.

For more than 30 years, providing small loans to the impoverished around the world has been a successful tool to help people lift themselves out of poverty. This concept, referred to as microcredit, received renewed attention last year when its originator, Muhammad Yunus, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his successful application of this concept.

Workshop speakers will include: Ali Riaz, professor, Politics and Government, Illinois State University; Tom Feltner, policy analyst and spokesman for the Chicago-based Woodstock Institute; John Burrill, Mid Central Community Action, Bloomington; Steve Neumann, an independent consultant assisting Chicago-based non-profit organizations; and Bishop Larry Taylor, senior pastor, Center for Hope ministries, Bloomington.