Loans instead of charity?

Recently I heard about a website where you can contribute to loans for people who would not be able to get them from a regular bank (http://www.kiva.org/). I like the idea of having people work to get help so they take pride in themselves and actually make better use of the aide that is given. I had heard of microfanance previously (yep, from the same person =) ), but it didn't really sink in as much until i saw how a similar idea is used for habitat for humanity( http://www.habitat.org/ ).

I guess now i need to explain that one. When i was in the officer training they had a day where you get to do community service for the morning and there were some choices, and i felt my best fit was habitat for humanity. It was a good time, and they described their process of how they have the potential owners work 500 hours of "sweat equity" before they can get their house. This is in the form of some classes such as finance, and working at the jobsite. I got to see the owner of the house i was building and how much she cared about the process and how thankful she was.

I will probably try to do another habitat for humanity project near home when they have one again now. Also, I decided to lend some money to someone on kiva, let me know if you find out who it is. My only hint will be that a side part of the loan is to set up a pool table =)