Miscellaneous Forum

I am not sure if you are familiar with KIVA - it is an organization and its mission is to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty. Read more about it on www.kiva.org

I have been supporting a couple of projects by means of microfinance and have not been disappointed!

Today I created a lending team and would love to see fellow VT/KIVA supporters join this team! You can find the team here:

http://www.kiva.org/team/virtualtourists

Looking forward to meeting you there (and quite curious, too)!!!

I'll go have a look at it, Christine!

I have some money "invested" KIVA loans in Cambodia & Palestine, but I'll join your group.

Glad to hear that there is another VTer who is a KIVAni (?) as well!

Well, my intention to start this lending team was that actually I like the idea of seeing VTers, who have been travelling and seen the world, together in a group!

I do enjoy my friends' personal group, I love the bookcrossing team who is trying to find loans that are somehow book related, I do love the German team, in which we can discuss things in German etc. - and that is why I thought that maybe a group of VTers could share some impressions and knowledge about certain regions of the world in that KIVA group!

Just an idea!

Kiva Mark

I have several Kiva loans going also--mine are in South America.

KIVA mark as well.....

I've had 2 KIVA lends, will be happy to join this group too.

Yay!!! Our team has doubled!!!! I am not alone anymore!!

It is fun to see that there ARE other VTers out there!!

Yup, we have a Kiva loan out there too.

Okay, I'm interested, but I'm not familiar with this group. It isn't rated by the site I usually use, but it seems to get good reviews elsewhere. Has everyone with loans out had good experiences?

I do not understand what happens.

You can loan small amounts of money, as little as $25. It gets pooled with money from others until it reaches the loan amount needed. You can read biographies of the people who need loans, and what they want to do with it. The loans are administered by local agencies. As the loan is repaid, the money goes back into your Kiva account. You can then re-loan it or cash it out.

I'm on my 3d or 4th loan. So far, they have always paid, but it's not a sum I couldn't lose if they didn't. I have $75 loaned out now. When the repayment gets to $50, I'll reloan it.

Right - it goes to people in very economically stressed countries for business start-ups and what not. One of the people we loaned to needed livestock. Anyway, they're supposed to pay the loan back, and then you play the original amount forward to someone else.

I looked into Kiva and the entire microfinance industry. I was about to get involved when I started running across stories of people committing suicide because they could not pay off their micro-finance loan. Turns out the debtors in entire areas of India are refusing to repay their loans because of the predatory practices of the lendors.

You don't have to google very hard to find stories suggesting Micro-finance is merely loan sharking and usuary by another name.

I like the concept, but I do not like the idea of charging 30% or more in finance charges. If the idea of microfinance is to give people a leg up, the usurous interest rates are a chain around their necks. The only people who profit are the banks, and I trust a bank as far as I can throw it.

Brad,

thanks very much for your comment!

The aspect you mention is not to be neglected, but I just hope that this is not the majority!

One of my mottos is: "where there is sun, there is also shade" - and I am afraid that this holds true for this area as well! Yes, the banks do charge interest on the loans - and yes, the fees and interest rates add up to quite a sum, to! But then KIVA does not make a secret of it AND fact is, that other big banks would not even give micro credits to the poor for that interest rate.....

As I said earlier: I do hope that suicides will be outnumbered by the help that is being provided by these loans!

My main objection is the 30% to 36% or more interest charged. Such rates can only be extracted from people who are desperate or naive. Few economic activities generate return on investment of 30% to 36% in the first place, certainly not reliably.

I agree that loans are better than grants and wholeheartedly endorse the microfinance concept; but, I cannot see lending my money at zero interest to allow someone else to make 36% interest off of it.

Poverty is a very difficult problem. I wish there was a simple solution to it. Naturally there can't be or it would be solved already.