I heard about micro-lending when Dr. Muhammad Yunus received the Nobel Peace prize in 2006. I should have heard of it earlier, being an Indian & student of finance/economics. The idea immediately appealed to me, a loan small enough that doesn’t effect your life but can change the life of another, simply beautiful.
The basic idea is to give a loan of a small amount ($50-500) to an individual, or group of individuals, in a under-developed/developing country so that they can start/expand their business. The loan recipient uses this money to uplift his/her life along with their family’s. The loan has to be paid back. This link provides more info micro-finance and its benefits.
As I said earlier, the idea had a lot of appeal to me but then I didn’t have the means. I was paying off my loans 
. Now, that I have some (a very small sum) to spare I went looking for a place where I can lend and I found kiva.org.
At Kiva you find folks from across the world requesting loans for various purposes. They mention the amount of loan, purpose and the terms of repayment. One or more lenders can give a loan (minimum $25 per lender). As a lender, you pay via paypal and once the entire loan amount is raised the money is sent to a field partner in the country of the requester. The field partner then disperses the loan to the person who requested it. For more details on how it would please visit http://www.kiva.org/about/how/.
As a lender, you don’t get any interest but for me the satisfaction that I helped someone become self-reliant is more that enough. Personally, I feel it is a step forward from donating as your money recycles and can influence more lives. A parent who does well financially will feed his children better, educate them better and lead to better lives.
So, my plan is to loan an ‘X’ amount to various folks through Kiva. Once, I get enough money back from these folks I will loan to another person. So, I invest ‘X’ today and hopefully, it will recycle for life. WOW!!!
Filed under: kiva, micro-finance, non-profit, poverty
