A post today that is not about photography at all but is inline with our Help-Portrait project.
A few years ago, I discovered an interesting idea whereby I manage a portfolio of micro loans which are spread out around the world by an organization called Kiva. They facilitate interest-free micro loans, using PayPal as a payment platform, (who donate their services, without fees) to match up lenders with borrowers around the world.
I found out about Kiva through David Hobby (Strobist) have been lending to them ever since.
This is Paulino, a businessman in Peru. He is a hard working person and he makes an effort to give his 5 beloved kids the best. He decided to stay in his home land so that he could develop it, and now he carries out his everyday chores with a lot of love and affection as he cultivates the land and feeds his animals. He would now like to extend his cultivated lands and would also like to be able to offer a public transport service to to his beloved community while he keeps working hard on his lands with the loan that he will intelligently invest in buying seeds, fertilizers and animal feed.
I was a funder on his loan, which was for a total of $750.
That’s not a lot of money by western standards, but it makes a huge difference to Paulino. Click on the pic for more info.
In addition to Paulino, my outstanding loan portfolio includes:
Elizabeth Del Socor Altamirano Gómez ( Butcher Shop, Nicaragua)
Grace Nsamba’s Group ( Livestock, Uganda)
The Kiva.org microlending process is free, and can be accessed from any internet-enabled computer. They are really catching on, too. So much so that they have a temporary limit on the amount of money you can contribute to any one microloan — $25.00.
But merely by foregoing the interest you would have earned on that $25 for a year (comes to 75 cents at a savings account rate of 3%) you can, from your desk, make a real difference to a family who will probably never worry about whether they should buy a new car, camera or the newest gadget.
Please take a minute and have a look at their site to see if this is something that interests you: Kiva.org.
Thanks!
Jean
