Being a disabled traveler involves challenges many others don’t have to face. But is movement getting easier or harder for disabled travelers to move around?
I once worked with a man named Victor. We forged a friendship that was contingent upon a shared penchant for searing social criticism, ironic humor, and good food, (though not necessarily in that order).
This New Year??™s, I was horrified to read in The Hindustan Times that in Mumbai, India, outside of the JW Marriot Hotel, two women were felt up and groped by a mob of seventy men on the open street as their companions looked on helplessly.
The photograph on the front of the paper, showing the perpetrators piled up on top of the women, instilled in me a sense of outrage that I have not felt since I was in Thailand, and was assaulted by a mototaxi driver as I attempted to go to a job interview alone.
This article is in response to a previous BNT post entitled ???Why we need micro-loans instead of slum tourism.???
I want to urge caution in what has become a widespread and unqualified enthusiasm for the whole micro-finance thing. Since Yunus won the Nobel Prize, people have been afraid to criticize the idea of micro-finance.
But I hold a great degree of skepticism about the effectiveness of micro-loans to promote authentic well-being and prosperity for folks in the so-called “developing world” over the long term. I hasten to add that I am not dismissing the concept 100%, out-of-hand. But I have serious doubts.
Tags: Handup, Handout, The, Case, Against, Micro-Loans