This is our monthly Kiva plug to promote this wonderful organisation which allows us, on a tight budget, to do so much to help people in poorer countries. If you’re one of the 209 people who have joined Kiva through Big Family Little Income you might like to skip over to the Kiva site and relend the repayments from your loans to some other worthy recipients.
What we love more than anything else about Kiva is we can reuse the same money over and over again. This is so far from throwing money at an organisation and hoping some of it gets to the people you want to help it isn’t funny. You choose the person you want your $25 to help and then, because it’s a loan, over a period of months they pay it back allowing you to lend it out again. Or have it deposited back into your account!
Not that we’re interested in taking our money back. We’d rather keep lending it to the next person. On average, we’ve lent out every dollar we’ve deposited to our Kiva account over 10 times.
Here’s what Kiva has to say for itself:
We are a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Leveraging the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world.
We only ever lend $25 to each person because we love to spread the love around. Besides, part of the beauty of this concept is having ten, twenty or fifty people throw together the funds to make a difference for someone who, without our combined help, wouldn’t be a candidate for traditional banks.
This month it was Master8 who sat down at my computer and went through the borrowers listed on Kiva to find someone he wanted to help. He decided we should lend our $25 to a farmer so we pressed a button and culled the list down. It took him five minutes, because he likes to read each application, until he found one which he couldn’t turn away from.
“This one!” he told me. “I want us to help So-So-So…Sooohib? Is that how you say it?”
I asked Master8 why we were throwing our $25 behind this particular bloke.
“He wants to feed his children and his parents during winter,” he told me. “And his cows. I think we should help him.”
Here’s a little something from Sohib’s application:
Sohib is 44 years old. He has extensive experience in raising chickens and livestock as well as dairy production. Sohib’s large family lives on a farm in the countryside and their main source of income are their animals. Sohib’s wife and children help manage the family farm and produce dairy products. Sohib has four children and in order to provide for their nutrition, clothing and education, as well as help his aging parents, Sohib must increase his monthly profits. To increase his profits Sohib has to expand his herd and prepare them for the winter by stocking up on feed.
We love the Kiva concept. We love our kids are learning about the world and how lucky their privileged place is within it. We love they show empathy for the people they’re helping. We love we can do it all for as little as $25.
But you don’t even have to use your own money to try the Kiva concept for yourself! Click on THIS LINK to go to the Kiva site and you can have a try of the whole process and choose a person to help in some far flung part of the world and someone else will put up the $25 for you (they get the money back when it’s repaid, of course).
Thanks again to everyone who has joined the battle against poverty. It feels good, doesn’t it 🙂
When not over here, Bruce Devereaux hangs out at his Big Family Little Income Facebook Page. Come join us 🙂
 ”Raising a family on little more than laughs.”
