Sites to Watch: Vittana.org, Crowdfunding Empowerment

It's difficult to decide who to give your money to these days, especially with so many associations and organizations using crowd-sourced funding like Kickstarter, a site allowing people to donate funds to a cause or project -- wherein they will receive prizes in return for their donation. 

In this case, let me present to you: Vittana. Implementing the mentality that "education empowers," the Vittana's website allows you to support a student by gifting a loan to pay for schooling.

With active partnerships in eight different countries -- currently Bolivia, Honduras, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, and Vietnam -- Vittana allows students that don't have the funding to attend school by helping them financially while in school, and teaching them self-accountability by having them pay back the loan once they are done.

Donors, with their generosity, are able to choose which students they would like to help by clicking on their profile and reading the student's story.

Much like the "Give a man a fish, teach a man to fish quote," Vittana -- meaning seed in in Telugu -- allows people to grow as a person and become contributing members to society.