Today I would like to share something slightly off topic in the spirit of the season of giving. In 2006 Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize for their incredible contribution to help people break out of the circle of poverty with the concept of
micro-credit. In a nutshell, this means that you can make a small loan ( like $25 small) and this money is loaned to someone in a poverty stricken country (such as Peru, Cambodia or Uganda) to help them help themselves. The person who borrows the money pays it back over a period of time and then you are free to lend it to someone else.
Valentin Mamani Villa is a brick layer in Bolivia. He is married and has three daughters. With previous loans, his family completed construction of a reinforced concrete floor and the structure for a new room on the second floor. Now he requests a loan for the construction of a room made of brick on the already constructed floor.
I use Kiva.org and I have loaned money to a man in Sierra Leone who runs a used clothing store and needed money to buy additional inventory; a woman in Nicaragua who needed a generator so she could have electricity to cook and allow her daughter to do her homework; and woman in Cambodia who was trying to expand her business of selling vegetables. It’s an incredible concept and a humbling one too. To us, $25 may not seem like very much but it can make a world of difference to many of these people. In each area there are Field Partners setting up the loans and supporting the people who borrow the money to give them the best chance of success. The high repayment rate is amazing considering the their circumstances.
So if you have $25 to spare, check out Kiva.org and give in your name or someone else’s as a holiday gift. It is literally the gift that keeps giving and giving and giving…
Happy Holidays,
Lorrie
Tags: My Favorite Things
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on Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 at 6:11 pm and is filed under My Favorite Things.
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