As many of you know, I am an aidworker. Since we started our “Change Starts Here” project about 18 months ago, many colleagues from work joined in, and became members of our Kiva lenders team.
The news spread around, and quite a few people from work follow the project. While working on mission in the Dominican Republic for the Haiti earthquake relief operation, I had one of my colleagues come to me at the end of his mission. He said working in Santo Domingo and Haiti opened his eyes more, and he became more aware of what he could do in life, and for those around him.
He asked if he could give me a -considerable- amount of money, part of his daily allotment for working here, so he could do some good through me. He wanted to remain anonymous, but still wanted to contribute.
So the loans I allocated today are his “giving back” to the world, a world he felt now much more part of.
I was taken by this gesture, as it illustrates how ‘doing good, spins off’, but also towards him, I said “Do good, and good will come to you”.
Thanks again, my anonymous friend! May the good come to you too! Your loans were allocated to agricultural entrepreneurs in South America, like the Santa Lucia Communal Bank entrepreneurs, consisting of 18 women. They are all friends and neighbors and are working in their fifth loan cycle.
Justina, the team leader, requested a loan to establish a business selling slaughtered chickens. At first she will sell to the neighborhood businesses. Then, she wants to have her own henhouse to raise, fatten, and sell the chicken herself. This will leave her with greater income.
Her Kiva entrepreneurial group is part of the 6 loans we allocated this week:
 The Unidos Venceremos Group in the Dominican Republic As I have been in the Dominican Republic since January, supporting the Haiti earthquake emergency, I thought to concentrate my next batch of loans to entrepreneurs in this region.
I found a few of them based in the Dominican itself, like the Unidos Venceremos group in Samana, bit further North from here.
Martina is the coordinator of the group. She lives with her partner and their three children. This is her nineth loan with Kiva. She plans to use this loan to invest in her business by traveling to the capital to purchase skirts, jeans, blouses and pants in the main markets and then bringing them back to her community to sell. She will use the profits to invest in her business by purchasing a scooter to help her move her merchandise as well as saving towards having her own store one day (her current business is mobile).
She also wants to invest in her home by remodeling it.
As I have been busy with work, repayments from previous loans had been piling up on my Kiva credit, to a total of US$3,500. So after I “exhausted” the loans for Dominican entrepreneurs, I looked for more entrepreneurs from South America.
Why? Well, during my stay here, we had many South American staff from our organisation travelling through, and working with us. While I travelled through over 100 countries in the world, South America clearly showed to be an unknown to me. I was surprised to find so many of these people well-trained, very motivated and knowledgable, and I have started to grow fond of them.
That’s why the majority of the funds for this US$3,500 loan went to entrepreneurs in this region. As they deserve all the stimuli they can get.
Here are all the loans:
 One of our new entrepreneur groups: The Por Una Vida Digna Group in Peru “Por Una Vida Digna” is a group of ten people who have been investing in some type of business since six years. Mrs. Benedicta Serrano, for example, makes and sells variously flavored yoghurts according to her customers’ wishes. She also sells various fruit nectars.
She has a lot of demand so the funds she receives will be used to buy an ice chest. She is a very active group member and, because of that, she was selected to be the group president.
As a dance teacher, Elsa Dávalos, noticed renting costumes could be a profitable enterprise so she began to make them herself and then rent them to her students. This work has given her much satisfaction.
The other group members have different lines of work to which they are dedicated with much enthusiasm and effort because one of their most important objectives is to provide their families with sustenance and good education.
We allocated a loan of US$50 to the “The Por Una Vida Digna”, as one of our 44 new loans. In this loan trench, I concentrated on:
- Groups of entrepreneurs, led by women, or with a majority of women; or
- Entrepreneurs working in agriculture by either growing a crop or raising animals; or
- Entrepreneurs in South America.
I allocated a total of US$1,775 in loans to entrepreneurs in Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Peru, Cambodia, Philippines and Nicaragua. This amount was the total repayment of previous loans, which I received during the month of December.
Here is the full list of the new loans:
 Fe Erma Aragones lost her fish pond in Typhoon Ondoy Fe Erma Aragones lives with her husband Biato Aragones and their three children Emilio, Ana Marie and Angelica in Binangonan, a village in the North of the Philippines province of Rizal. She says their children, and their new grandchildren are really their blessing and the reason they strive hard to fight against poverty. Because of their work, all of their children could graduate from college, and found work now.
Fe and Biato have a fish pond in the sea. When Typhoon Ondoy entered Rizal, their fish pond was damaged. The level of water in the sea got that high all the fish inside the fish pond were lost. They wanted to repair the fish pond and expand it. They also needed new funds to buy fishlings they can raise until it is ready for harvest.
Fe asked for a loan of US$950, repayable over 14 months. We allocated a loan of US$25 to her, as part of our project to help microfinance entrepreneurs in the Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam recovering from the recent typhoons.
Over the past month, we allocated $1,825 to this project. Friends from The Road’s lending team contributed another US$730, bringing the total of new loans after the typhoons to US$6,055. This matches the total amount we raised through this post.
The project balance:
| My contribution |
3,750 |
| Donation by E |
300 |
| Donation by Diana |
1,000 |
| Donation by Liz |
100 |
| The Road’s team |
905 |
| total: |
6,055 |
The microfinance loans I allocated this month:
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Change Starts Here – The Score: $33,250
 Your Impact Captain :-)
 Peter. Flemish, European, aid worker, blogger, expeditioner, sailor, traveller, husband, father, friend, nutcase. Not necessarily in that order.
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