Loans we did make

Pakistani Women’s Teacher

Austin Brezina Loans we did make, Pakistan, Why We Kiva

Many girls in rich or middle class areas of the world complain about school. But imagine if girls couldn’t go to school and learn..

Borrower image

Well that’s the life girls live in Pakistan — a place where women aren’t always treated equally.  If you can imagine not having girls in school, imagine not having female teachers.

But, there is one women who is teaching science in a 50% boy and 50% girl school with over 375 students. You could probably realize how dangerous and expensive that would be, especially for a women to do.

This women’s name is Bushra and she lives in a part of the world where there is a lot of segregation between women and men. Also, there have been women caught teaching or being taught that were brutally attacked by the Taliban or another extremist group.

This is why I decided to support Bushra. I believe that anyone —  all men and women alike — should be able to learn and teach others.

If you want to help go to Kiva.org to make an account and a loan.

#kivachangeslives

#whywedokiva 

By: Austin B.

You Think You’ve Got It Bad?! Try Sulfur Mining!

Mathew L Loans we did make, Our Reasoning

How do you earn your money? Clean your room, clean the pet cage, rake the leaves?

Would you go down into an active volcano, get 200 pounds of sulfur,  carry it out, sell it and do it all over again?  Because that’s what sulfur miners in Indonesia do — and that’s the highest paying job in their community.

Sulphur-carriers

(click to enlarge.  Image licensed Creative Commons)

But guess what highest paying means?  Thinking $100 a day, $200 a day? Let’s think lower. Not 50, not 20, and not even 10! For one round of sulfur, your pay is $5.  Even worse, you have to walk though the toxic fumes of a volcano, and avoid falling in.

Imagine doing this every day, for 365 days, just for $5,200. These people work harder than lots of people in America, but they get about a tenth of what the average American makes. They don’t exactly make enough to support their families. These people will be willing to take anything they can get — and that’s why I decided to loan to Indonesia.

Be sure to help them.

By: Mathew L

 

Living Without Walls

Kendall Murcia Loans we did make

While scrolling down on the Kiva website, we found a women named Deyanira.  She lives in Mexico. She needed a loan for re-building walls and a roof above the kitchen for her family’s house.

Deynaria

Her family has been living in Mexico for 25 years and they have done so much for their daughter.  Now Deyanira wants to give back to her parents, who paid for her education and supported her. In Mexico, people make about $15,600 each year and the average American makes about $52,800 — which means the average Mexican makes $37,200 less than Americans!

By: Sara, Kendall, and Cindy

#Why_we_kiva

 

Las Girasoles Tecpanecas Group of Guatemala

Nicolas Haub Guatemala, Loans we did make, Why We Kiva

The Las Girasoles Tecpanecas Group is group of women in the rural Guatemalan city of Tecpan. This is a group of women who work hard to meet individually set goals.

There are 9 women in the group who all have a different businesses such as, food sale, agriculture, weaving, selling clothing, and the sale of cosmetics. They call themselves the “Las Girasoles Tecpanecas” or the Tecpan Sunflowers.

Las Girasoles Tecpanecas GroupThere are many reasons I made made this loan. One reason I made this loan is the average annual income in Guatemala is only $5,300.! Compare that to how much your parents make in a year. In fact most people spend more than that on a car in America.

Another reason why I made this loan is the loans at risk rate and the default rate are extremely low. The loans at risk rate and default rate show whether similar loans in the area where not paid back or not paid back at all. We will also be paid back monthly over 10 months. This means we will get paid back a little bit over 10 months which means we won’t have to wait a long time to get our loan back.

The final and most important reason I made this loan is for people like Dolores (one of the women in the group). Dolores is 68 years old and is practically the sole source of income for her family and is responsible for paying for the education of her kids by owning and running a small food business. With the loan she hopes to buy spices and rice to expand her business.

This is why we Kiva. We Kiva to help women like Dolores and their families make a better life for themselves.

By: Nicolas H.

 

Giving A Necessity: Clean Water

Evan C Loans we did make, Uganda

I recently made a loan to a school in Uganda called Rock School. In Uganda, people don’t have access to a supply of clean drinking water, therefore more people are infected by water-borne illnesses such as diarrhea.

KIVA Rock School 1

This loan was made to help the school purchase a UV water filtration system so that the students can have clean water to drink while at school. They believe that if they have a clean water source, then more students will show up to school because of the decrease in water-borne illnesses.

Now this wasn’t exactly a picture perfect loan. This loan did have some downsides. This loan gets payed back over a 24 month period, irregularly. This means that we get a little bit of our money back every so often. But we do not know when we will get a bit back.

This social security agency also has a 3.72% loans at risk rate. This means that we have about a 4% chance of not getting any money back at all. But the risk is worth the reward.

If we do not get our money back, then I would still feel good about my decision to loan to Rock School because of why they needed the loan. Here in the United States, we don’t worry about the water that we drink being contaminated with disease. But in places like Uganda, they do have to worry about it all of the time.

#CleanWater

– Evan C.