It’s that time of the month when repayments from our previous KIVA loans come back into our account and we get to lend the money out to the next person.
This morning Master7 sat with me and we looked for someone to help. KIVA is a great tool to help kids realize how diverse the world is and just how lucky they are. Master7 chose a man in India who supports a wife and two children through his chicken farm. What Master7 especially liked about this application was Udaya was buying some medicine for his chickens. Udaya’s byline read, “A loan of $575 helps Udaya Bhanu to purchase more chicks, their food and medicines for his poultry farm.” We didn’t put up the whole $575, just US$25. Lots of lenders put together the money to make up any one person’s loan.
Here’s what the rest of Udaya’s Kiva application had to say:
“Udaya Bhanu is a 37-year-old physically challenged person living with his wife and two children. His wife is a homemaker and his two children are still schooling. He is engaged in the activity of running a small poultry farm, from which he earns 6,000 INR per month.
Udaya Bhanu has a plan and idea to enlarge his business by adding some more chicks to his poultry farm and to renovate his farmhouse. He wants to install an automated water and food feeding machine for the chicks.
He has requested a loan of 30,000 INR for purchasing chicks, their food and medicines, and for his farm renovation.
Udaya Bhanu has a dream to make his children well-educated, give his family a good and quality life, and save some money for his children’s future.”
KIVA is a fantastic way to directly effect the lives of people around the world who want to improve their situations. Big banks won’t touch them. We can, and make all the difference.
The other thing with KIVA is, because the money is repaid, you get to relend the funds. We’ve only put about $300 into our KIVA account over the past few years but this is our 74th loan, meaning we’ve loaned $1850. Furthermore, if you want, you can withdraw the money as it’s repaid.
If you’d like to check out what KIVA is all about, here’s a link http://www.kiva.org/invitedby/family5775
And if you do join, look us up (Team Devereaux) in the Paying It Forward team 🙂
