Micro-finance and the Need for Understanding Society

I am giving a presentation on micro-finance in the Udai SJC today. The first important thing I want to convey is how any social initiative should understand the nature of society and culture in order for it to be successful and involve the people better. With regards to successful micro-finance initiatives, some points are as follows:
- People value trust
- People value their social status
- Solidarity based on caste and income levels is still prevalent
- Respect for hierarchy exists
- People take pride in their identity
- People are inherently entrepreneural

The second important thing I want to convey is how such initiatives can serve as conduits to push other ideas and philosophies, like family planning, satination, civic sense, and education. We are trying to follow the same principles for our research work here with tetherless communication, by developing applications to turn rural kiosks into community centers and media/awareness depots with location specific broadcasts.