| Why Kiva? by Karen Michael During one of my earlier apprenticeships
in the academic world, I had had been led to South Africa to study some of their business practices.
While there, the curriculum took me to an informal settlement
called Wallacedene (Click here for
a story on news.bbc.co.uk/ Wallacedene
), near Cape Town, to meet
the staff of an HIV/AIDS treatment facility.
At a time when I knew every HIV sufferer
in You see, in Wallacedene there was no plumbing,
no sewer system; things I simply took for granted in the world that
I came from. Here everything
was overflowing with shit, lots of shit. To my middle
class sensibilities, the odor was overpowering. The poverty I thought I had come to terms with
while working for 15 years in American social services was nothing compared
to the horrors I witnessed under that merciless African sun. Before this huge swell of poverty, I felt small,
inadequate, and morally swamped. I
had no experience that would explain to me why and how people could
be this poor. My turmoil was so great that I became physically
ill. In retrospect, I think I had something
like a nervous breakdown right there.
I spent much of that lunch in the lady's room scrubbing my hands
like There in that room I realized that, for my own welfare, I had to
do something about the horrors I had witnessed.
Not being independently wealthy, I was unable to form a foundation
and I did not have adequate funds that would allow me to write a check that was large enough to make any difference in the
situation. On the day directly after I had first encountered Wallacedene, and it’s filth, my group went to a lovely place to dine that was located on one of the numerous, excessively clean vineyards in South Africa. There I was served exotic slices of smoked
salmon on delicate beds of lettuce, but I could not eat. Even my inability to eat made me feel ashamed
because I had just seen people who were actually starving to death. I felt hounded by the guilt. What I saw that day changed the entire direction
of my life. Around that point in time, one of my professors
had spoken about an amazing phenomenon he had encountered called the
Grameen
Bank that was a new type of lending institution. Demonstrable poverty was the first qualifier
to become a client of Grameen! Instead
of loaning large amounts of money to people of means with plenty of
assets to back the loans, Grameen Bank made it its business to lend
small amounts of money only
to people with no means and zero assets.
This had turned conventional banking logic on its head.
The Grameen
Bank presented a new model of institutional financial delivery. Its founder, Muhammad
Yunus had gained political support from the highest
levels of government in his native Still, what Yunus
did to create business opportunity for the poor of KIVA ENTERS THE SCENE Sometime later, I received a seemingly
insignificant email from one of my colleagues in the USA regarding a
remarkable organization he had seen discussed on the television show
called,
”Good Morning America.” He seemed very excited about it; however,
I felt no quiver of excitement reading this news. However, being conscientious, I followed up.
It turned out that the organization was called
Kiva.org and, as I read, I caught his enthusiasm. You see, in the past, I have thrown a
meager amount of money into various worthy causes. While doing this, I have always kept my metaphorical
fingers crossed, hoping that those funds would actually reach the people
for whom they were intended, rather than being spent on printer cartridges
and WD40 for squeaky office wheels elsewhere. (Under sufficient impetus one proceeds hopefully,
if warily.) Now there is a chance for me finally to have
some say in the process of helping another.
Now I know I am actually helping someone, and not merely helping
an organization that is supposed
to be helping them. Yes, this was something like charity, yet it was much more concrete than that. This was a contract between real people, one-on-one. Giving to KIVA. _____________________________________________________________________________________ Small
Investment/Large Returns Over 10 million people have visited this site in the
past year, a testament to the fact that, no matter what our individual
circumstances might be, we are all searching for ways that we can make
a difference in this world. To
this end, we give our time to various endeavors, and we give our hard-earned
dollars to what (we hope) are worthy causes.
In short, we do all that we can.
However, it appears as though we are sometimes throwing that
money and effort down a deep, dark hole.
Little measurable change has occurred.
The BIG PROBLEMS the world confronts, such as poverty, hunger,
and the atrocities of war, still stand squarely in the path of humanity. A friend has brought to our attention that at last, there
is new idea, which is proving to be effective. Unexpectedly, this old friend located us recently.
Seems that she is living in Christmas was nearly upon us, so we happily exchanged
gifts. We are, among other things,
book artists, so we sent her a little hand-made book meant for documenting
her travels. She is an Economist,
so she sent us a book about something called Micro-lending, along with
a $25.00 gift certificate for an organization called Kiva. We were artists, and not much inclined to read
about economics, so we did not understand it’s
significance. But after a few
emails back and forth we learned that Kiva was an organization founded on the principles put
forth in this book, and the $25 gift certificate would allow us to see
this in action for ourselves. We
were willing to approach it gingerly, for our friend’s sake. Curious about the word, Kiva,
I looked it up on Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopedia. Among other, unrelated items, it listed the
following:
Kiva—a room used for certain religious
rituals; Kiva (organization)—a non-profit
organization that tries to alleviate poverty;
The book she sent us was titled,
Banker To The Poor, by Muhammad
Yunus.
I was captivated from the onset.
The following comes directly from the back cover of, what turned
out to be, a fascinating book. In 1983, Muhammad Yunus established Grameen Bank - Bank for the poor,
devoted to providing the poorest
of In the words of Yunus, “When
we want to help the poor, we usually offer them charity. Most often we use charity to avoid recognizing
the problem [of poverty] and finding a solution for it. …But charity is no solution to poverty. Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the
initiative away from the poor.” As you can see, it is written in a very simple, straightforward
manner. For your convenience,
we found Banker
To Poor at Amazon.
Follow this link to get your own copy; it will revolutionize your thinking. We quickly put the $25 gift certificate to use by investing
it into another human being through Kiva. Moreover,
there was an added bonus for us in knowing that if and when the money
was repaid, we could either reinvest it to help yet another, or have
it returned to us. This small investment promised to produce a very large
return. You may click on Banker To The Poor,
Muhammad Yunus, or Kiva
for more information about any of these subjects. In the case of the book, you will be taken directly
to amazon.com, where the book may be purchased. Disclaimer: www.MakeADifferenceToday.info receives no remuneration from any company or
individuals. Home /Quick Quotes /Recommended Reading / BestOf2007 /Best of 2008 / Most Recent/Archives / About Us / Contact us / |
