I'm a Kiva Lender!
Tuesday, August 10, 2010 at 08:37PM Hurray!! I've finally got around to doing something that I've been promising myself I would do for awhile now. As with so many things in life, we put it on the back burner and it stays there. But alas, I have made my very first loan on Kiva!
Meet Tarcila. She's an entrepreneur who owns a furniture-making business in a small town in the Philippines called Ilagan. For over two years now, she has been selling household furniture within her local community. Tarcila plans on using the loans to buy raw materials to make more furniture and hopefully expand her business.
Tarcila Tandayu
For those of you who don't know what Kiva is or how it works, let me give you a quick run down. Kiva is a non-profit organization that facilitates the lending of money (with a 98.79% repayment rate!!) through the use of the Internet to microfinancing insitutions in various developing countries around the world. These microfinancing institutions then lend the money to small businesses and individual entrepreneurs. As for how it works, here's a pretty simple diagram that explains the process.
Now why Kiva? Because I firmly believe in sustainability, in empowering people to lift themselves out of their dire living conditions by giving them both an opportunity and a platform to do so. The people living in these developing nations are some of the most resourceful and intelligent people our world has to offer and they are the very people we should and need to be investing our money in. It is they who will ultimately alleviate poverty for themselves and for their communities.
So if you've got some dough to spare, make a loan today...it's easy peasy and you'll be doing some real, tangible good! Visit www.kiva.org today!
A huge thanks to my friend, Andrea, whose blog post served as reminder and an impetus to lend ASAP.
Reader Comments (2)
Great blog you have here. This micro financing business is catching on fast with the general public. I've heard about this concept like twice in the past week. I think I will soon be donating via Kiva, once my account set up:).
PS. U of T sucks. Good luck in life Justine, Keep up the good work on the blog, and I hope that good things happen to good people.
Thanks for the comment wiinotfit! You should definitely do some lending if you've got some extra dough in your hands! You can give as little as $25 and you'll get your money back in a few months. My friend just got repayed after about 5 months and she's ready to loan to another entrepreneur. It's a pretty great concept that just makes good sense!
And as for U of T. Hahaha, yeah...it sucks sometimes. It's pretty much a love/hate relationship between the two of us. Where did that comment come from by the way? Pretty random! Heheh...
I hope that good things happen to good people too! Cheers!