Economy/Labor/Biz

Frieda Kipar Bay is an herbalist. She teaches workshops on growing herbs for medicine. A class like this might normally cost $50-$60, but at a recent workshop at the Homestead Skillshare Festival, at Hayes Valley Farm in San Francisco, students didn’t pay a dime.

The daylong gathering – which included 40 different workshops, food, and live entertainment – was funded with a different kind of currency: hours. These transactions are managed by the Bay Area Community Exchange Time Bank.

On today’s Your Call, we’ll have a conversation with Hugh Sinclair, the author of Confessions of a Microfinance Heretic: How Microlending Lost Its Way and Betrayed the Poor. Sinclar argues that with a few exceptions, the $70 billion dollar industry is filled with corruption. What do you want to know about how this industry operates?  Join us live at 10am PST or post your comments here.  Have you donated money to a microfinancing institution? What will it take to ensure they actually help the poor? It’s Your Call, with Rose Aguilar and you.

Guests:

Lorenzo Bynum has the “baller" build you might see on the cover of GQ, without the swagger. He’s clean-cut, 5’10”, wears two small earrings and has a muscular frame. It’s a Wednesday afternoon in Marin City, and the 23-year-old is digging frantically through a 10’ by 10’ closet. He’s hunting for a parachute large enough for a game with 15 third graders.

Wednesdays are busy days for Bynum. He clocks in at three part-time jobs: two hours directing elementary school children, two hours coaching track and field, and two hours coaching middle school boys basketball.