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One of the charities our family is involved with is KIVA (www.kiva.org). Kiva is a micro-finance lending site. It's basic premise is - better to give a hand up, than a hand out. People have the opportunity to lend small amounts of money to either small entrepreneurs, or social projects. Groups of small funds are pooled together to fund a single project. Kiva lenders provide their funds at zero interest. It is not a donation - just a chance to use our money for a whilem to help a business or a project get off to a good start. We lend alot of money to projects in Central and South America, so I used this trip as an opportunity to see our loans in action.
This morning I went with a Kiva Field Partner organization - AFODENIC - to visit a project outside of Masaya. The funds we provided were used to buy water tanks and the materials to deliver water directly 4300 homes in the area. The residents pay a small monthly fee for the water provided - and those fees are used to pay back the original loans. This group wasn't looking for a donation, they were simply unable to come up with the advance funds to buy the ncessary construction materials. They used the loan to buy the materials, and their own personal/hard labor to install the system. Now they have usable water in their homes, and pay a fair monthly fee for the service.
I learned how important clean water is to these families. Sickness has gone down, and hours spent finding and purifying water can now be spent on more productive activities.
It was a great experience learning first hand how our funds have been used, and to meet and speak direclty with some of the people who have benefitted.
Oh yeah - every person I met with today (those from AFODENIC and those in the barrio that installed the water system) spoke absolutely no English. Talk about being on the spot in putting your Spanish skills to the test...
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karen Arbaugh :)