Hired by ForbesTraveler.com to review some of the most luxurious
accommodations on Earth, and then inspired by a chance encounter in
Dubai with the impoverished workers whose backbreaking jobs create such
opulence, Bob Harris had an epiphany: He would turn his own good fortune
into an effort to make lives like theirs better. Bob found his way to
Kiva.org, the leading portal through which individuals make microloans
all over the world: for as little as $25-50, businesses are financed and
people are uplifted. Astonishingly, the repayment rate was nearly 99%,
so he re-loaned the money to others over and over again.
After making hundreds of microloans online, Bob wanted to see the
results first-hand, and in The International Bank of Bob he travels from
Peru and Bosnia to Rwanda and Cambodia, introducing us to some of the
most inspiring and enterprising people we've ever met, while
illuminating day-to-day life-political and emotional-in much of the
world that Americans never see. Told with humor and compassion, The
International Bank of Bob brings the world to our doorstep, and makes
clear that each of us can, actually, make it better.