Microcredit is a financial innovation which originated in developing countries where it has successfully enabled extremely impoverished people (mostly women) to engage in self-employment projects that allow them to generate an income and, in many cases, begin to build wealth and exit poverty. Due to the success of microcredit, many in the traditional banking industry have begun to realize that these microcredit borrowers should more correctly be categorized as pre-bankable; thus, microcredit is increasingly gaining credibility in the mainstream finance industry and many traditional large finance organizations are contemplating microcredit projects as a source of future growth. Although almost everyone in larger development organizations discounted the likelihood of success of microcredit when it was begun in its modern incarnation as pilot projects with ACCION and Muhammad Yunus in the mid-1970s, the United Nations declared 2005 the International Year of Microcredit."
Also, here are few more articles about Mr. Yunus---

http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/asia/2006/heroes/bl_yunus.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1546339,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15254411/site/newsweek/

Mohammad Yunus is the father of MicroCredit. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia-

"Microcredit is the extension of very small loans to the unemployed, to poor entrepreneurs and to others living in poverty who are not bankable. These individuals lack collateral, steady employment and a verifiable credit history and therefore cannot meet even the most minimum qualifications to gain access to traditional credit. Microcredit is a part of microfinance, which is the provision of financial services to the very poor; apart from loans, it includes savings, microinsurance and other financial innovations.

Cartman is the best!!!

Thank you Joedirt! Videosift is picking up speed and I am glad to be part of this movement.