One of the great things about the Internet is the way it makes new business methods practical. In the past there was no way I, as an individual, could make much direct practical difference to individuals in developing countries. Today, however, I just made a loan to someone in the developing world using www.kiva.org.
You can go to Kiva's website and lend to someone in the developing world who needs a loan for their business - like raising goats, selling vegetables at market or making bricks. Each loan has a picture of the entrepreneur, a description of their business and how they plan to use the loan so you know exactly how your money is being spent - and you get updates letting you know how the entrepreneur is going.
When the entrepreneur pays back their loan you get your money back - and Kiva's loans are managed by microfinance institutions on the ground who have a lot of experience doing this, so you can trust that your money is being handled responsibly. At that point you can either reclaim the money, or lend it to someone else.
I just made a loan to an entrepreneur named Illenikhene Isibakhome in Nigeria. She still needs another $500.00 to complete their loan request of $600.00 (you can loan as little as $25.00!). Help me get this entrepreneur off the ground by clicking here to make a loan to Illenikhene Isibakhome too.
It's finally easy to actually do something about poverty - using Kiva I know exactly who my money is loaned to and what they're using it for. And most of all, I know that I'm helping them build a sustainable business that will provide income to feed, clothe, house and educate their family long after my loan is paid back.
Join me in changing the world - one loan at a time.
Thanks!
What others are saying about www.Kiva.org:
Revolutionising how donors and lenders in the US are connecting with small entrepreneurs in developing countries -- BBC
If you've got 25 bucks, a PC and a PayPal account, you've now got the wherewithal to be an international financier -- CNN Money
Smaller investors can make loans of as little as $25 to specific individual entrepreneurs through a service launched last fall by Kiva.org -- The Wall Street Journal
An inexpensive feel-good investment opportunity...All loaned funds go directly to the applicants, and most loans are repaid in full -- Entrepreneur Magazine
According to the circus that opposes the Leader of the Opposition, it's all about power.
Jeremy Corbyn, they say, would not be able to command a sufficient parliamentary majority to form a government, and so he should be replaced. The levels of personal ambition betrayed (betrayal is an unavoidable stain on the circus) by the current Wilson leadership campaign are impressive, but it appears to me that all we Labour Party members are offered is empty promises of an overnight change. Switch your bank account in a day, switch your party leader as though he were a football manager after an unsuccessful season. Welcome to the twenty-first century realpolitik.
When a goal is difficult, people sometimes wryly observe that "you can't get there from here." I see no narrative in Owen Wilson's policies for how society will slowly be restructured to provide the fairer country that all Labour supporters aspire to. Rome wasn't built in a day, and the Labour Party must acknowledge that the journey back to government can only be gradual. The Conservatives successfully focused on people's “aspirations” in the last election but the aspirations to which they alluded were the venal desires of those who, when more becomes available, want it all for themselves. My kind of socialism wants to see the pot more equitably shared out, and is prepared to agree that those whose need is greater should get some priority.
Even ignoring that to get there from here we must, in the real world, pass through all points between, it seems to me that an even worse betrayal by Corbyn's opponents than that of their party is the way they are betraying the parliamentary process itself. By focusing solely on electability they implicitly suggest that the Opposition has no power. This ignores Jeremy Corbyn's most significant parliamentary success to date, which is that he has shifted the “Overton Window,” the range of acceptable political ideological debate, far more than most have realised in the last year.
Now we are finally governed by a Prime Minister whose personal integrity indicates (despite her draconian rule at the Home Office) that she might be amenable to moral argument, the value of Corbyn's achievement is of real potential to those whom the cruellest policies of the past six years have hit worst. Sadly, there is much repressive legislation to be repealed or replaced but thanks to the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition, the Rt. Hon. Jeremy Corbyn, it is something that can legitimately be discussed.
Jeremy Corbyn has something that few other politicians do: the trust of a large number of people, many of them disadvantaged and formerly hopeless. For the Labour hierarchy to stab these new members in the back in the worst possible way, by denying their aspirations would be the kami kaze destruction of a disintegrating party. He may not yet be a fully effective leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party, but he carries hearts and minds with him in a way that hasn't been seen in a long time, and Labour will ignore that at their peril.
His opponents would betray the people of this country by waiting until they achieve a distant goal before allowing the poor to once again enter the promised land of secure existence. Corbyn's way offers them some hope for the first time in a long time. The Opposition's duty is to oppose, and that should be the first responsibility of today's Labour Party, not the pie in the sky of an election victory in four years.
Jeremy Corbyn, they say, would not be able to command a sufficient parliamentary majority to form a government, and so he should be replaced. The levels of personal ambition betrayed (betrayal is an unavoidable stain on the circus) by the current Wilson leadership campaign are impressive, but it appears to me that all we Labour Party members are offered is empty promises of an overnight change. Switch your bank account in a day, switch your party leader as though he were a football manager after an unsuccessful season. Welcome to the twenty-first century realpolitik.
When a goal is difficult, people sometimes wryly observe that "you can't get there from here." I see no narrative in Owen Wilson's policies for how society will slowly be restructured to provide the fairer country that all Labour supporters aspire to. Rome wasn't built in a day, and the Labour Party must acknowledge that the journey back to government can only be gradual. The Conservatives successfully focused on people's “aspirations” in the last election but the aspirations to which they alluded were the venal desires of those who, when more becomes available, want it all for themselves. My kind of socialism wants to see the pot more equitably shared out, and is prepared to agree that those whose need is greater should get some priority.
Even ignoring that to get there from here we must, in the real world, pass through all points between, it seems to me that an even worse betrayal by Corbyn's opponents than that of their party is the way they are betraying the parliamentary process itself. By focusing solely on electability they implicitly suggest that the Opposition has no power. This ignores Jeremy Corbyn's most significant parliamentary success to date, which is that he has shifted the “Overton Window,” the range of acceptable political ideological debate, far more than most have realised in the last year.
Now we are finally governed by a Prime Minister whose personal integrity indicates (despite her draconian rule at the Home Office) that she might be amenable to moral argument, the value of Corbyn's achievement is of real potential to those whom the cruellest policies of the past six years have hit worst. Sadly, there is much repressive legislation to be repealed or replaced but thanks to the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition, the Rt. Hon. Jeremy Corbyn, it is something that can legitimately be discussed.
Jeremy Corbyn has something that few other politicians do: the trust of a large number of people, many of them disadvantaged and formerly hopeless. For the Labour hierarchy to stab these new members in the back in the worst possible way, by denying their aspirations would be the kami kaze destruction of a disintegrating party. He may not yet be a fully effective leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party, but he carries hearts and minds with him in a way that hasn't been seen in a long time, and Labour will ignore that at their peril.
His opponents would betray the people of this country by waiting until they achieve a distant goal before allowing the poor to once again enter the promised land of secure existence. Corbyn's way offers them some hope for the first time in a long time. The Opposition's duty is to oppose, and that should be the first responsibility of today's Labour Party, not the pie in the sky of an election victory in four years.
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