Make a difference
Friday September 3, 2010
One of my favourite organisations is Kiva, which makes loans to people in developing nations so they can start their own business and become self sufficient, breaking the cycle of dependence on aid and empowering them to take control of their own lives.
Each person “donates” US$25 – which is nothing to us – and becomes part of a group financing a business, be it a woman wanting to start a sewing business in Chile or a pig farmer in Africa needing to buy a boar for breeding, a single mum in Nepal trying to support her family or a widow in Afghanistan hoping to get into retail to earn enough for food. They get the start-up costs and get straight to work, and repay their loan promptly. And despite many of them living in war zones and in countries where it can be hard to grow crops, there is far less defaulting on loans than from westerners to their banks!
Most loans are repaid in full – all of mine have been – and when that happens you can either take your money back, or re-loan to someone else. I love it when a loan is repaid because then it can be put to use for a new person.
Last year when I first posted about it, I’d made six loans in 18 months – to a young mum near Cusco, Peru, to open an internet café, to a group of women in Uganda to start a poultry farm, to two women in Peru’s jungle to expand their food production company, to a widow in Bosnia for piglets for her farm, to a group of women in Nicaragua for their cooking business, and to a man in Iraq to start a taxi business.
Since then I've made another three loans, to a young mum in Kenya, Africa, to develop her business in order to educate her child, to a young woman in Cusco, Peru, to buy stock for her store to support her family, and to a widow in Ayacucho, Peru, to develop her sewing business. Of the none loans I've made, five have been paid back in full, and the rest are part-paid and still in progress.
I love getting the updates on the businesses, and seeing in such a tangible way how lives can change so easily. These people desperately want to be able to work and earn enough to support themselves, and this is a brilliant way to empower them to change their own life.
As a wise man once said, don’t give a man a fish, teach him how to catch his own.
Visit kiva.org.
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