2008 December

Kiva Rocks!

Just got a mail from Kiva… The people we have allocated loans to through our blog’s social project have started repaying.
We received a total of $55.11:

Quirudis Altagracia Ortiz Cordonis’s Group in Dominican Republic (Activity: Grocery Store)
Our Loan:$50.00
Newly Repaid:$8.33 (16.66% of our loan)
Maria España Ugaz Castillo in Peru (Activity: Food Production/Sales)
Our Loan:$50.00
Newly Repaid:$12.50 (25.00% of our loan)
Sopheap Chun’s Group in Cambodia (Activity: Agriculture)
Our Loan:$100.00
Newly Repaid:$7.44 (7.44% of our loan)
Kim Houy Lach’s Group in Cambodia (Activity: Poultry)
Our Loan:$100.00
Newly Repaid:$3.89 (3.89% of our loan)
Ganna Shkirta in Ukraine (Activity: Fruits & Vegetables)
Our Loan:$50.00
Newly Repaid:$6.25 (12.50% of our loan)
Francis Jamilett Areas Vivas’s Group in Nicaragua (Activity: Retail)
Our Loan:$100.00 (12.53% of our loan)
Mao Kung in Cambodia (Activity: Pigs)
Our Loan:$50.00
Newly Repaid:$4.17 (8.34% of our loan)

The funds are now available as Kiva Credit, which we can re-lend! More work to do

Check out our Project Score Card

Project 10: Lien Thi Nguyen in Vietnam

Here is a summary of The Road’s 10th social project:

A micro-financing loan to Nguyen Thi Lien in Vietnam.

Lien Thi Nguyen is 22, and been participating in Kiva’s local micro-financing fund since 2002. Her family’s main source of income is raising livestock and her husband’s construction work.

With an income of 3,500,000 VND (+- US$200) per month, the family’s finances are becoming more stable day by day. With her new loan, Lien will buy one cow to raise, and invest in a wheat harvesting machine to provide a service for the local people. (See also Lien’s full profile on Kiva)

This loan goes through “TYM fund”, the local micro financing partner of Kiva.

Loan Request: $725
Repayment terms: 11 months (Deadline Nov 15 2009)
We gave her a loan of US$50

This is The Road’s 9th social project. The funds for this loan were donated by the VK0IR Heard Island expedition team.

We bought chickens, cows, pigs and farming tools today…

“Change Starts Here”, our blog’s social project raised US$3,947 so far. Not bad hey?!

$64 were raised in comments via our kick off post.

Our Kiva lenders’ team has grown to 9 people!

Today we allocated another $1,000 set of loans to people in Cambodia, Peru, Vietnam, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, Bolivia and Samoa.
With this loan we concentrated on women active in agriculture. Our loans micro-financed calves, seedlings, chickens, fuel for an farming pump, fertilizer, guinea pigs, cows, building material and farming tools…

Check out our score card for an overview.

Everyone likes cupcakes

Change Starts Here, our blog’s social project uses Kiva to allocate small loans to individual entrepreneurs in developing countries.

In this post I describe the project.

If you want a more humorous version of my appeal, you gotta read this hilarious article in Time where Joel in the States matches up his funding with Freddy, the baker, in Nicaragua and decides the latter should go global with his cupcake production. Enjoy!

Picture courtesy Time

@GeoMmm ah it is already bad enough that the Microsoft Office products for Mac have different functionality than on PC
Reading "Disastrous Passion", an online romance novel about 2 aidworkers by @TalesFromthHood http://t.co/BJ0av9lg
RT @AidJobs Just closed our 8th day of @Kiva fundraising. We now total $1,110 (yipee!). 1 comment = I donate $5 http://t.co/Yih5GNQ1
@gaurisalokhe I am in the bush of Fregene, no mobile coverage here, so no telephone, haha @GeoMmm
@GeoMmm Not the case, I just read them faster- but seriously, that chirping drove me nuts.Thought it was the HD, but this Mac is solid state