Microcredit advocate Sam Daley-Harris to speak at development symposium April 4

MIDDLEBURY, Vt. ? The Middlebury College International Student Organization will host author and entrepreneur Sam Daley-Harris for a talk titled “Revolutionaries and Champions: Critical Ingredients to Ending Global Poverty” on Friday, April 4, at 4:30 p.m. in Room 220 of McCardell Bicentennial Hall, located on Bicentennial Way off College Street (Route 125). The talk is free and open to the public.

Daley-Harris is an internationally known advocate for microcredit - very small loans to the poorest people to help with small businesses - as an important tool in the fight against world hunger and poverty.  He is president and founder of RESULTS, a nonprofit grassroots advocacy organization committed to creating the political will to end hunger and poverty. RESULTS organized the February 1997 Microcredit Summit held in Washington, D.C., which was attended by more than 2,900 participants from 137 countries and launched a nine-year campaign to reach 100 million of the world’s poorest families with credit for self-employment and other financial and business services.

Daley-Harris is the author of “Reclaiming Our Democracy: Healing the Break between People and Government,” about which President Jimmy Carter said, “[Daley-Harris] provides a road map for global involvement in planning a better future.” Daley-Harris is also editor of “Pathways Out of Poverty: Innovations in Microfinance for the Poorest Families.”

Daley-Harris’s talk is part of the Middlebury College International Students Organization’s Development Series, which includes several other talks, screenings, a workshop and a Panel Discussion between Tuesday April 1, 2008 and Wednesday April 9, 2008. For more information, email student organizer Faria Rahman at frahman@middlebury.edu or call her at 802-989-3851.