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My sister’s been using Kiva for years, and she recently got me a gift certificate to get started, and so I’m finally involved it as well.

Kiva, as it describes itself, is “the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.” “Kiva is a non-profit organization that allows you to make a small loan to low income entrepreneurs across the globe (microfinance). Individuals like you can help provide affordable working capital for the poor — money to buy a sewing machine, livestock, etc. – and help an entrepreneur escape poverty”

Basically this means you can take part in microfinancing various projects around the world, with Kiva as the agent (I wouldn’t quite say middleman because Kiva isn’t profiting from anyone). Kiva helps find ideal projects and gets the work done so a qualified individual can present himself on the website and ask for help. From there, people/lenders look at what projects they are interesting in funding, then do so. I took my sister’s original gift certificate and then added my own $25 contribution to join a couple of projects. I’ve also added a Wordpress plugin (see bottom right of this site) that lists what I’ve invested in. (oops, plugin not working for now)

The process is pretty simple:

1. Join the website, purchase an amount you’d like to invest (kind of like credits, depositing money into your Kiva acount) with PayPal.
2. Look for projects all over the world, and find one you’re interested in. Each project shows the picture of the actual person you’ll be loaning money to, as well as a description of what they want to do. I assume Kiva helps translate what they want to say, working with other groups that are on the ground. Each investment project has a total they need to reach; they can’t begin until they reach the target. They’ve also recently started projects in the US; these tend to need more money in fund raising (to be expected), but there are also videos of each applicant, so you can get a better feel of what the person is all about. I wonder if we can visit those people to say hello.
3. Pick a project and invest. Like any investment, there’s no guarantee. You also won’t profit from your loan, it’s a pure loan $X, get $X back. It’s helping people!

For my first two investments,

(On, and I know the accents are getting killed in my blog, I’ve never been able to support accents in the actual blog posts correctly)

Ti?n Nguy?n V?n (20206050011) is a 28 year-old male living in the town of Yên Phong – B?c Ninh. Ti?n is the group leader of a 5-member group loan offered by SEDA. While each member of the group receives an individual loan, they all are responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members, if someone is delinquent or defaults. The official name of this borrowing group is Yên V? 03 (3).
Ti?n is married and has 2 infant children. To make a living, Ti?n owns & operates a business raising chickens for sale. Ti?n has been engaged in this business for over 5 years and earns approximately 3,000,000 VND a month from these activities.
Ti?n joined SEDA to gain access to financial services to help improve his living situation and to engage in business activities. Ti?n is requesting a loan of 5,152,000 VND to purchase livestock feed & other supplies. This will be the 1st loan taken out by Ti?n from SEDA. He plans to use the additional revenue generated to improve and expand his business.

Bình Nguy?n Th? (254991509) is a 51 year-old female living in the town of Sóc S?n. She is married and has 3 adult-aged children. To making a living, Bình owns & operates a business venture in the agriculture sector raising livestock. While not the only means for generating revenue, the main source of income for the business comes primarily from raising fish for sale. Bình has been engaged in this business for over 10 years and earns approximately 5,500,000 VND a month from these activities.
In 1996, Bình joined TYM Fund to gain access to financial services to help improve her living situation and ability to engage in business activities. Bình has successfully repaid a previous loan of 20,000,000 VND from TYM Fund. This previous loan was used to renovate an existing shelter for the her livestock. Bình is now requesting a new loan of 20,000,000 VND which will be used to purchase baby livestock to raise & sell in future. The loan will be the 10th loan taken out by her from TYM Fund. Bình plans to use the additional revenue generated from the business to improve/expand her business.

I don’t really have deep reasons why I decided to invest in these two particular projects, I just felt like it. I wanted to invest in Vietnam just because… Nguyen Thi Binh is the name of a good friend, so that was one. The other was I just wanted to pick someone who hadn’t gotten a loan before; a lot of people had received multiple loans before.
The loan repayment period for both is slightly over a year, so I guess I’ll just be waiting around and seeing how these people do over time. Since I live in Vietnam, I wonder if I could somehow visit these people, not really to make myself known, but just to see the real use of the money.

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