A crash course in changing the world.
EVOKE@Kiva Update: I'm turning into a Kiva addict!
Since starting a lender team for EVOKE agents on microloan web site Kiva, I've been quite busy researching into the microloan project. If you are interested in microloans and/or already a member of Kiva, hopefully the following information will be of interest to you.
About Our Team
So far we have five members of our lender team at Kiva and I would like to thank everyone who has signed up as a team member. I really hope that together we can make some real change by investing into developing economies.
If you make a loan on Kiva, please make sure to select 'Urgent EVOKE' as the team you wish your loan to count towards! Please also blog your loan on Urgent EVOKE to spread the word. If you would like to, use the tag "EVOKE@Kiva".
Team News
The first loans from our team have already been made on Kiva!
I chose Edward B. Sesay's Group in Makeni, Sierra Leone.
Photo from Kiva.org
Mr. Sesay is the spokesperson of a group of teachers at a primary school in Mabonkani village. The school was founded in 1972 by the Wesleyan Church of Sierra Leone and currently has eight teachers and 318 pupils from Mabonkani and the surrounding villages. The loan will go to pay for school fees for children, furniture, plots of land, house-building materials and investments. As I write the loan has been fully-funded and I will post when I receive any news.
Featured Loan
I would like to put forward a recommendation for anyone on EVOKE who is interested in making a loan and hasn't done so yet.
Photo from Kiva.org
The Creciendo En Fe 1,2 Group is requesting a loan for the purchase of medicine supplies. Its leader Maria runs a pharmacy in the slums of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. In this area crime is a serious issue and supplies of running water and electricity are unreliable. Maria lives in a simple structure here with her partner and child. The loan will be invested in the purchase of medicines for colds, fever and diarrhoea, and Maria hopes to use the profits towards buying her own home.
Urgent EVOKE@Kiva: http://www.kiva.org/team/urgent_evoke
Views: 8
Tags: ACT5, EVOKE, EVOKE@Kiva, Kiva, Kiva.org, Santo Domingo, Sierra Leone, education, medicine, microloan, More…
-
Comment by Elastika on April 3, 2010 at 1:37pm -
Riko that was really a great idea to start a team on Kiva.
I hope many more joins our Kiva EVOKE team. These are my entrepreneurs I've chosen to lend money to: http://www.urgentevoke.com/profiles/blogs/ive-become-a-kiva-lender
-
Comment by Riko Kamachi on April 3, 2010 at 1:48pm -
Thank you :) I do too, I'm rather excited about this!
-
Comment by Nathaniel Fruchter on April 3, 2010 at 4:11pm -
This is an awesome project with lots of great potential. I've alerted Alchemy and you might make it into a blog post. For the meantime, you get +15 Entrepreneurship.
-
Comment by Riko Kamachi on April 3, 2010 at 4:54pm
-
Wow thank you Nathaniel! :)
-
Comment by Victor Udoewa on April 3, 2010 at 5:35pm -
Yes, great work. I want to join. Should I join your team because it looks your team doesn't fund Creciendo en Fe? Or should I just fund them directly?
-
Comment by Bongumusa on April 3, 2010 at 6:03pm -
What is an advantage of making Loan? My Accounting Lecture taught me that" Today's happiness, is future's sadness" which is a Liability. If I get a Loan today, I will be happy, but I will pay untill I die.
-
Comment by Elastika on April 3, 2010 at 6:49pm
-
@bongomusa: this is an ignorant statement, don't believe to your professors everything they say... especially if they are economists!
microfinancing it's for micro loans - most of the people need a year to pay it back.
and even if they don't, nobody from the people they lent 25$ won't die if they don't get it back. It's like a donation.
If you get a loan today and buy a big car, I'm sure this is a useless act and you'll regret it tomorrow (or the day after). but if you get a loan to start a business to help put your kids trough school, well I think you'll be even happier in the future ...
-
Comment by Riko Kamachi on April 3, 2010 at 6:59pm
-
@Victor: The way Kiva works is that you can browse through the directory of people requesting loans and decide which you would like to make a loan to. Creciendo en Fe is just one of those that I decided to draw attention to. When you've chosen yours you get the option to make your loan 'count towards' a team you've joined - that's how there are teams listed on Criciendo's page :)
@Bongumusa: The loans we're talking about here are not quite the same as loans taken out in developed countries. They're not as big and they aren't of the type which continues until the person has paid it off. Each requested loan has a pre-defined payback plan which is tailored so it is achievable by the person who has made it, in most cases over 6 months to a year.
The advantage is that by funding a loan you're supporting a country's economy at grass roots level. The people requesting the loans are doing so because there are no local credit options for them. Many loans requested are for people's small businesses and the funds will help support these, causing a lasting knock-on effect which will benefit the communities they are in. Others are for things like housing repairs or school fees which they pay back from their salaries.
-
Comment by Bongumusa on April 3, 2010 at 6:59pm
-
Thank you Elastika for good elaboration. If I can be happy in future, we call it as an Asset, because with can dramaticatical and reversely gain without losing too much. I was not aware about that, but I got it. I am happy about it.
-
Comment by Elastika on April 3, 2010 at 8:02pm
-
Riko I think I'm also turning into a Kiva addict :)
I've searched blogs on Kiva on EVOKE and I've invited the authors of it to join the EVOKE team on Kiva ...
© 2012 Created by Alchemy.
You need to be a member of Urgent Evoke to add comments!
Join Urgent Evoke