I like the idea of the micro-loans that are being used to help individual (very) small entrepreneurs in third world countries become more financially independent. One of the things I like about it is that it keeps the local economy mostly local. I think we could use a bit more of that in the "developed" countries.

These links have some information on this subject...

http://www.pbs.org/previews/heroes/

http://www.skollfoundation.org/aboutskoll/index.asp

Here's a small excerpt...

"Power of Enterprise"

"The third program looks at how social entrepreneurs are working to break the cycle of poverty by empowering people to earn a living. Among the foremost of these is Muhammad Yunus, a.k.a. "the banker to the poor," whose Grameen Bank provided 3.8 billion dollars in loans to 2.4 million families in Bangladesh and inspired similar credit operations in a hundred countries. The episode also travels to the jungle city of Pucallpa, Peru, where Albina Ruiz Rios has been forming micro-enterprises to clean up garbage that is ruining the environment, contaminating water and causing disease in poor neighborhoods. And it ventures into the violence-plagued slums of Rio de Janeiro, where Maria Teresa "Tete" Leal leads the Coopa-Roca sewing cooperative, a fair labor shop that creates clothes seen on the runways of the high-fashion world."