Kiva 2

Well I signed up for Kiva yesterday.
The site is so busy that they are only allowing people to make loans of $25,00.
I made two. I was interested in variety: man/woman, city/rural, Africa/Asia.
One to Iyabo Adesat of Nigeria (Lagos).
She deals in paper and needed $400,00.
Within a few hours she had it.
The other to Shavkat Tohirov of Tajikistan.
He has five sheep and needs $200,00 to buy feed for them.
Yesterday his loan was completed also.
Today I got this email regarding him:

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Shavkat Tohirov by MLF MicroInvest-Tajikistan in Tajikistan. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 4 - 10 months, MLF MicroInvest-Tajikistan will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

I'll keep you posted.

Kiva

Last night in my down time I was zapping and came across Oprah Winfrey.
There was Bill Clinton.
I have already said on this weblog that I like him a lot better than I do G.W.
Oprah was promoting Clinton's book "Give" (the programs are shown here much later).
A website that specializes in microcredit was mentioned.
www.kiva.org
Click here for the the information on the Winfrey site.
You can choose a small entrepreneur to whom you want to make a small loan - as little as $25.00.
Via the website you can follow the project and keep track of the repayments.
When you money is repaid (without interest) you can reinvest it in another business.
As far as I can see it looks pretty reliable.
The default rate is about 0.2%.
I think I might give it a try.
I'll keep you up to date about how it is going.
Sounds like fun!