Fund 43 microloans through Kiva.org

went to a man in Peru and his taxi service. A brief perusal of my loaning profile revealed that the majority of my loans have indeed gone to helping people with their taxis. Perhaps they could make me a patron saint of taxis? Or at the very least a UN ambassador?

when a repayment came through. Can’t remember who it was to to whom it was paid or what they wanted it for. Does that make me a bad person?

Goes to Ezanar in Tajikstan, full-time cattle-raiser and part-time welder.

goes to Ana, who grows peas, and dreams that her children will finish their studies.

went through at the start of November but I forgot to post it.

• Alem Shakhpelengov is 33 year old and has always been a hard-working man who has made sure, from a young age, that his family never goes without their daily bread. He is a widower with one son. He has a grocery store where he sells different kinds of food products such as sweets, soft drinks, juices, and other items. He began running his food store nine years ago in order to support his parents, and he is their only support. Today he needs to buy additional products to increase the range of goods he sells. With this purpose in mind, he is requesting a loan of US$1200. He is ready to work even harder, make sacrifices, and push every once in a while, to achieve his goal and become a successful entrepreneur. We believe his perseverance and clear vision will become key success factors in his small business.*

I have a few payments due on the 15th of this month but not sure if it will bring me up to 25 dollars…

Goes to…Mariam Mwangira.

Mariam Mwangira is a Tanzanian entrepreneur. She runs a shop that sells a variety of items at the Mbagala market in the Temeke District of Dar-es-Salaam. She purchases products from the wholesalers at the Kariakoo city shopping center and then resells them. She wants to run a wholesale shop. Income generated from her business is used to meet daily family demands and also to pay the school fees of her two children. She is requesting a loan to expand her business.

An old loan got repaid, so I asked K to help me choose who the new loan should go to. K has just got his motorbike, so we decided to help this chap buy a new motorbike for his taxi business. It was the first K had ever heard of kiva, so hopefully he will put some money in the kiva pot and we will be able to take out some more loans.
Ideally, I’d like to take out one a month for a year since they are generally 12 month repayment schemes, so we would be able to make a new one every month, but we will have to see how far the money pot stretches now that I’ve given up my nice income for the the big book writing gamble!

Kodzo Bidabi is 35 years old and a married father of 3 children, all of whom attend school. He lives in Assahoun, a village located approximately 50 kilometers from Lomé, the capital of Togo. He has been working as a motorcycle taxi driver for more than 3 years and successfully provides for his family with the income that he earns. Kodzo would like to improve his business by buying a new motorcycle with the loan he will receive from FECECAV. The fruits of his labor will allow him to improve the lifestyle of his family.

Name: Eduardo Copado Sanchez
Business Name: Eduardo’s Food
Location: Tampico, Tamaulipas, Mexico
Primary Activity: Food Production/Sales
Loan Requested: $300.00
Repayment Term: 3 months – repaid monthly
Loan Use: To buy ingredients
Date Posted: May 14, 2008

Go, go, Eduardo!

Paypal has been conquered and the first three loans gone through. Decided on three because that came to the same amount as I spent on assorted clothes and underwear at the weekend; it seemed only fair to match my willingness to spend on such frivilous items by investing the same amount in people doing their best under circumstances I can hardly imagine.

So..

1 Vahid Aliyev, who needs to ship new spare parts from Russia for his car repair business in Azerbaijan.

2 Chork Uk in Cambodia to buy a new carriage for his motor taxi. I donated the final 25 dollars towards his loan, so hopefully he should be getting the money in the near future.

3 Darwin Ochoa who has a beauty salon in Ecuador and wants to buy new furniture to ease his overcrowded shop. I picked him because he has been seperated from his wife for six years, but still wrote that his reason for wanting the loan was to help support his children. That’s more than a lot of the seperated dads in the developed world do: go Darwin!

Any of my subscribers reading this: not that I would twist anyone’s arm, but I highly recommend this goal! Most of us are on this site in a quest to somehow improve our lives, and all these people are asking is that we give them a little bit of faith, a little bit of capital, and help them do the same. Reading their loan requests is both sobering and uplifting, and has left me with a new determination to get the most out of my day and all the opportunities it will afford me.

Although, first things first, I have to clean out the cat litter…