Kiva Loans to the Working Poor, People Helping People!

The people you see on Kiva’s site are real individuals in need of funding – not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs’ profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need. http://www.kiva.org/

Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.

Kiva partners with existing expert microfinance institutions. In doing so, we gain access to outstanding entrepreneurs from impoverished communities world-wide. Our partners are experts in choosing qualified entrepreneurs. That said, they are usually short on funds. Through Kiva, our partners upload their entrepreneur profiles directly to the site so you can lend to them. When you do, not only do you get a unique experience connecting to a specific entrepreneur on the other side of the planet, but our microfinance partners can do more of what they do, more efficiently.

Kiva provides a data-rich, transparent lending platform. We are constantly working to make the system more transparent to show how money flows throughout the entire cycle, and what effect it has on the people and institutions lending it, borrowing it, and managing it along the way. To do this, we are using the power of the internet to facilitate one-to-one connections that were previously prohibitively expensive. Child sponsorship has always been a high overhead business. Kiva creates a similar interpersonal connection at much lower costs due to the instant, inexpensive nature of internet delivery. The individuals featured on our website are real people who need a loan and are waiting for socially-minded individuals like you to lend them money.

Click here for more about rebecca’s loan request
Name:    Rebecca Boateng
Location:    Mampong, Ghana
Activity:    Grocery Store
About the Loan
Loan Amount:    $650.00
Loan Use:    To procure goods for a grocery store
Repayment Term:     8 months – View details below
Lenders Repaid:    Monthly

Rebecca Boateng, 31, is married and a mother of four children, two males and two females. All of her children are in school – junior high and the basic schools. Rebecca lives with her children and husband in a rented apartment in Mampong in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Her husband is a mason by trade.

She works very hard to help her husband financially to provide for the family. Rebecca runs a grocery store in her community. She sells products such as tins of milk, sugar, bread, milo, etc. She has been in this business for two years and wants a loan to procure more goods. She hopes to sponsor all of her children to the tertiary level of education.

http://www.kiva.org/