Susan notes: Thanks to TED for making TED Talks downloadable and embeddable, and for providing the biographical information that goes along with them.

What do you think of people in poverty? Maybe what Jessica Jackley once did: "they" need "our" help, in the form of a few coins in a jar.

The co-founder of Kiva.org talks about how her attitude changed -- and how her work with microloans has brought new power to people who live on a few dollars a day.

Jessica Jackley is the co-founder of Kiva.org, an online community that helps individuals loan small amounts of money, called microloans, to entrepreneurs throughout the world.

Seven years ago, Jessica Jackley heard a speech by Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus, an economist from Bangladesh who had developed the idea of microcredit: loans offered to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.

By Catherine Pastille

They were trying to save her life.

That’s why the attending medical staff had ushered me away from my mother’s bedside, leaving me to stand alone in the middle of the hospital corridor.

I felt as if an invisible umbilical cord was being shredded. It was quite strange. Although I was an adult, I became aware that there was something quite powerful that connected us, and I sensed it being pulled away from the center of my body – I could feel it, in physical way.

The doctors asked what I wished them to do – resuscitate? Use a ventilator? Let her go? I was at the center of what felt like an approaching storm – one I knew I could not avoid.

It was then that I saw her coming toward me with open arms; and when I did, I knew in an instant that this was no ordinary moment…