Kiva - An Experiment in Empowering People

   I have been involved with Kiva for a couple of years and enjoy watching folks bring positive changes to their lives through hard work and a very small helping hand.
   These folks are not the ones out begging for money or asking the Government to take care of them. They want to take care of themselves, their families and their future.
  A normal loan is about $25.00 and almost all the time those loans are paid back. The amounts paid back now make it possible for me to make two or three loans each month, just from the payments on previous loans.
  Stop by and check the site, there are explanations, statistics and human interest stories galore for your viewing.

Take care and have fun,
Jim

What is Kiva?

Kiva's mission is to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty.

Kiva empowers individuals to lend to an entrepreneur across the globe. By combining microfinance with the internet, Kiva is creating a global community of people connected through lending.

Kiva was born of the following beliefs:
* People are by nature generous, and will help others if given the opportunity to do so in a transparent, accountable way.
* The poor are highly motivated and can be very successful when given an opportunity.
* By connecting people we can create relationships beyond financial transactions, and build a global community expressing support and encouragement of one another.

Kiva promotes:
* Dignity: Kiva encourages partnership relationships as opposed to benefactor relationships. Partnership relationships are characterized by mutual dignity and respect.
* Accountability: Loans encourage more accountability than donations where repayment is not expected.
* Transparency: The Kiva website is an open platform where communication can flow freely around the world.

...more Kiva information...