I came across KIVA in 2010, I loved the concept as soon as I saw it....
Basically, people who had the financial ability to give a small amount of money to help people less fortunate than themselves, could leverage the power and reach of their donation by making it though KIVA and their in country partners, who would bundle the small amounts together to provide a micro loan to a person or group in a developing country to help them in their goals to help them out of poverty.
KIVA says
Micro loans combat poverty daily by making small loans to borrowers around the world. We believe in fair access to affordable capital for people to improve their own lives.
Often only a relatively small amount of money stands in the way of Kiva borrowers and their dreams. Whether it’s a Kenyan farmer who needs $500 in order to double her grain production, or a young Bolivian woman who lacks the $1,500 tuition for nursing school, Kiva lenders provide a hand up to these and countless other borrowers.
All you need to do is;
- Choose a borrower
- Browse hundreds of borrower profiles on KIVA and find a story that connects with you.
- Make a loan
- Click ‘Lend’ to send money via KIVA's Field Partners, who vet, distribute and administer each loan.
- Get repaid
- Receive updates as the borrowers you support succeed and repay their loans.
- Repeat!
When borrowers repay, that money is yours to keep, donate to KIVA or lend again to empower someone new.
Since joining I have paid US$78 of my own money into KIVA but this has been loaned and re-loaned 18 times...Now that's what I call leverage.,
I have helped with setting up Motorcycle Taxi services , Health care and a Pharmacy , Buying stock for a store or food stall, recycling, farming and more...
I have helped people to break the chains of poverty in over 12 countries.
Since being introduced to Bitcoin ,crypto-currencies and then Steemit over the past year ( and a bit), I have become aware of the massive problem of the billions of unbanked ( not that I'm a fan of banks), the lack of access to capital, the difficulty and cost in moving money over long distances, borders is holding many hundreds of millions of people in poverty.
I pledge that the US$ equivalent of the STEEM given as reward on this post will be paid to KIVA to add to my lending pool and multiply it many times over in the coming years.
If you'd like to help by becoming a lender yourself, please check out KIVA
If you already use KIVA, I would love to read your stories.
As much as I love KIVA ..
I wonder how blockchain tech could disrupt this concept, in a positive way, allowing capital and projects to come together..how would reputation ,repayments etc be handled...I would love to hear ideas and feed back on this too.
Thanks in advance for your Upvote, if you'd like to help support this fundraising project, please Re-Steem this post and Follow Me on Steemit
https://twitter.com/steve_somers
50/50 post : I pledge that the US$ equivalent of the STEEM given as reward on this post will be paid to KIVA