Charitable New Year's Resolutions

Microloan Foundation provides added incentive to stop smoking

It's that time of year again - lose weight, be nice to the parents, stop biting the fingernails, cut down on booze ... oh, and give up fags. Again.

If you’re planning to quit smoking this New Year why not give yourself an extra incentive?

If you smoke 15 a day, you probably spend over £100 a month on ciggies. Donate that money to the Micro Loan Foundation instead, and you can improve your own health, and help change the lives of dozens of the world’s poorest people. Without it costing you an extra penny.

Banks won’t lend money to the world’s poorest people. But often all they need is a tiny loan to set themselves up in a cottage industry to sustain themselves and their families. The Micro Loan Foundation lends people like this in Malawi the small sums they need, sometimes as little as £15. And with careful training and monitoring, 97 out of every 100 loans are repaid in full, meaning the money can be lent again and again and again, helping more and more people. So over time, each £100 donation will help at least 50 adults and 100 children become self-supporting.

Put it another way, every packet of 20 you don’t buy, can mean seven less people in the poverty trap. A useful thought when temptation strikes.

Visit http://www.microloanfoundation.org.uk and click on the ‘Donate now’ box, to make a regular or one-off donation securely and safely online. Or call Peter Ryan on 020 8994 0951.

And if you ‘Gift Aid’ your donation, you can make Gordon Brown add an extra £28 for every £100 you donate.

A nice change from the £77 he used to take off you in duty and VAT.

January 6, 2005