Charity

I've just performed my good deed for the year. I usually like to get these out the way reasonably early on to allow me the rest of the year to focus on being selfish.

I'm one of those people that’s usually quite wary of giving to charities (I have my reasons), but I think I may have actually found a way I can help people with minimal effort, little risk and at no cost to myself. I was sent a link by a friend of mine, Mr Matt Holland, to join Kiva; a non-profit organisation that arranges loans to small businesses and individuals in developing countries. The full amount you lend is repaid over time and you can withdrawal that money or put it towards another loan.

It might all sound a bit too good to be true, it did to me at first, but it was when the first instalment of Matt's loan came back to him that I took interest and decided that this might actually be something I could get into. So I browsed my way through the list of borrowers, found one that I felt most comfortable with and made my $25 donation.

I've chosen to donate money to Jeanette in Bolivia who is requesting a loan for a rotisserie oven. I decided that I wanted to put money into the food sector (of course), but on searching through the list of borrowers I found that this mainly consisted of people who ran existing stalls and grocery stores that wanted a loan to purchase stock for their business. I found the idea of purchasing hardware to allow Jeanette to break away from a life of making sweaters to start her own food business more exciting, it appealed to me.

"Jeannette is married and has two children. They live in a rented home in the District of San Martín in the city of La Paz.

Jeannette only has a high school education, so now she sells sweaters and jackets at the street fairs. She has to leave her little ones behind so that she can work more than 10 hours selling her products. Jeannette also generates income by selling food from the doorstep of her house in the evenings. For this reason, she is requesting a loan to buy a chicken rotisserie (for preparing roasted chickens, in other words, a small oven that slowly rotates the chickens while they cook so that they develop a unique and delicious flavor). This will help to improve her earnings. Her husband does not earn much money working as an assistant at an auto repair shop."

So, now I hope to hear back from Kiva when Jeanette receives her oven, and as she profits from the loan they have provided the money should slowly start trickling back to me. I intend to re-loan it to another borrower in the future.