Fund 43 microloans through Kiva.org

This is the classic line of adding capital to an existing business to permit an expansion…

In an operation half-way around the world from me…

Malakhat Gulaliyeva is a 40-year-old married woman with two sons. She sells home furniture in her own furniture store. She has 15 years of experience.

She decided to open her business when it becamse clear that her husband’s income wasn’t enough to satisfy their basic family needs. Malakaht borrowed money from her friends and started selling furniture. Two years ago, she was able to build her own store with the savings she had.

Now Malakhat is concerned about the higher education of her two sons and wants to do everything possible in order to save money for their university careers so that they may attain university degrees. With this goal in mind, she has applied for a $1,500 USD loan in order to increase number of items she sells in her store.

Normally I’m leery of lending to groups, but when I got to the part about Mrs. Sokh being a rice farmer, I decided I had to help her out. Being a good Louisiana girl, I have a deep affinity for anyone who produces rice!

I forgot to list this one: number 9 went to help a man in Tajikistan repair his vehicle.

Most of the current loans that I ahve with Kiva have been paying back the lenders regularly, so I can make another “re-loan”. This one went to a group of entreneurs in Bolivia.

Another re-loan—it’s been a long time since I’ve actually had to put money into Kiva in order to make a loan. Only one of these loans has defaulted and that was one of the Kenyan business owners who suffered during the election violence last year.

This loan went to Georgina so she can raise peas and potatoes for sale in Peru.

Less than $1000 more and our 43 Things team we’ll hit the $15,000 mark!

It all starts with a needle and thread.

It follows with material and an idea…

And before you know it there are products to sell and people who are getting things they need that they couldn’t otherwise get except through the spark provided by someone else.

Most businesses fail due to a lack of capital.

This lady has a seventeen year track record. My longest time with a single company was eighteen years…

May her record outlast mine.

Mrs. Placida Polonia Mayorga is 46 years old. She is married and has 3 children. All of her children work independently. For more than 17 years Placida has worked as a seamstress. She started with her own money, and little by little, she invested in the business. Up until now she has been able to maintain her business. Placida would like to invest enough money to keep running her business. The loan is for working capital. She needs to buy materials like fabric, thread and other things. Placida’s dream is that her business gets a good reputation for selling quality products.

Hi!

I want to recruit you to our lending team, 43things, on Kiva, a non-profit website that allows you to lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur in the developing world. You choose who to lend to – whether a baker in Afghanistan, a goat herder in Uganda, a farmer in Peru, a restaurateur in Cambodia, or a tailor in Iraq – and as they repay the loan, you get your money back.

If you join our lending team, we can work together to alleviate poverty. Once you’re a part of the team, you can choose to have a future loan on Kiva “count” towards our team’s impact. The loan is still yours, and repayments still come to you – but you can also choose to have the loan show up in our team’s collective portfolio, so our team’s overall impact will grow!

See the rest of the gang here

Send a message if you want an invite to join, and I will forward a formal invitation.

This is a change again, agricultural funding for an existing cattle farm at the other end of the world.

Teach a man to fish…

In this case let a woman buy another cow.

Malakhat Aliyev is a devoted mother who struggles day after day to provide the best for her family. Eighteen years ago, she got the idea to start raising cattle to contribute to the family finances, taking advantage of the space she had available on their land for this business.
She is engaged in this business with her husband. Slowly, the number of calves increased and her clients started asking for more and more. With an endless list of requests, she has finally decided to increase the number of livestock she keeps, and for this reason is requesting a loan.

This is an investment in more stock to allow an existing business to expand…

Giwa Adekunle

Giwa Adekunle is 63 years old and married with 9 children. He has a shop where he sells spare motor parts. Adekunle is requesting the loan amount of 150,000 NGN to purchase more spare parts to sell. He says, “Thanks!” to Kiva and all that made this loan possible.

Since I was still logged on and had more credit, I made another loan, this one to Augustina Mensa in Offinsu, Ghana.

Augustina Mensa is twenty-seven years old. She is married and has given birth to four children, all of whom are girls. She says all her daughters are now in basic school. Augustina’s husband is a trader. He trades in second-hand gadgets such as television sets, radios, fridges, etc. She lives with her children and husband in her in-laws’ house in Offinso in the Ashanti Region of Ghana.

Augustina works very hard to support her husband in providing for the family. She is a food vendor. She cooks rice with stew. Augustina sells on a table top in the compound of the local community school. She buys bags of rice from Kumasi. She has been in business for five years. She wants to buy bags of rice on a large scale so that she can cut down on costs, such as frequent trips to procure goods. It is her dream to help her husband so that they can put up their own structure.

^{* loan still open}

There have been a few journal entries from past entrepreneurs I lent to in Kenya, mostly good news, Winfred Mwaniki in Kenya had a baby girl and has moved the location of her computer business, and Jonah Ndirangu has been doing well with the promotion of his music (but sadly lost some of his family members in the post election violence).