Latest Report from the Kiva Committee

If you wish to help me with KIVA and be a Member of this Committee, please email me: 

kiva@rotaryeclubnextgen.org  it really is a wonderful feeling helping so many people in countries where they would normally not have a chance of starting a business and making it grow.

KIVA Update October 2017

For those who are new to the e-Club, KIVA lends money via the Internet to low-income entrepreneurs and students in over 80 countries.  

I am endeavouring to lend to women in all 80 countries and I am at 66 of 80 with the remainder having no loans available at this present time (Oct 2017).   Through donations from the e-Club of NextGen and Friends of the e-Club of NextGen we have deposited a total of $1479 and have lent out $4425 so far.  It just goes to show how hard that money is working for us and it will continue to work as the loans are repaid.

For those following me closely we are now up to 177 loans, not quite at the 250 I had aimed for but we are getting there.  This is the last goal to be achieved from the June 2016 Report.  As the song goes, “Two Out of Three Ain't Bad”. 

I have been asked by e-Club Members to help particular countries as they have a connection to them.  I have tried to do so wherever possible which is why Cambodia is the highest with 6.21% of loans from the e-Club.  If you have a country you feel would appreciate our support please let me know, my email address is at the bottom of this report.
 

  

Sophea's Story:
  
Sophea is 30 years old and is a married woman with five children. She is in the weaving business. Her husband is in transportation service. Sophea has been weaving and selling silk skirts for two years.

She will use this loan to purchase more silk for weaving skirts and buy wood to repair her weaving store.

To draw attention to why I loan to women as part of Sophea’s story one of her goals is to: “send her children to universities in the future”.  When you help women, they are empowered to help their children, their lives. We are not only helping one person but many to work their way out of poverty.

If you wish to learn more about KIVA, you can do so at:  www.kiva.org or send me an email at:  kiva@rotaryeclubnextgen.org

Kind regards,

Lauren Jewson
KIVA Committee Leader.     

   

KIVA Update June 2016

Hello e-Club Members,

Welcome to the yearly KIVA report where I cover everything we’ve done the past year. We are now up to 125 loans! Our goal last year was to get over 100 loans. We have smashed that goal, so obviously our next goal should be even bigger! Let’s get to 250 loans this year! And our mini goal of reaching out to as many countries is going well as well, we are at 45 different countries now, not quite at the 50 countries that was our goal. But we did beat our third goal of loaning over $3,000. We have currently lent out $3,125. Our new goal will be $4500 for this year.

KIVA has done amazing things over the past year, and the E-Club is now apart a lot of new businesses. We are a part of a beekeeping business, a fruit tree business, a road building business, farming, jam making, education, dairy, fishing, livestock, cattle, beauty salon, cotton candy, photographer, bakery, agriculture, printing, translation, tailoring and dressmaking, flowers, shoes, embroidery and many others.  I have included some photos of our newest loans.

 

   
    

As always, if anyone has any suggestions they are welcome to have a chat to me at any time. I’ve available via the KIVA email address or on Facebook. It is great going through KIVA and seeing all of the people that we can help. I’m open to any suggestion of country or type of loan that anyone would like to send through. I know I’ve been trying to loan to a few more Egyptian women since my visit to Egypt, I’m sure some of you would feel the same about countries that are close to your hearts. Let me know which countries they are and I’ll make sure to be on the lookout for loans from those countries!

KIVA Update November 2015

Kiva is increasing in leaps and bounds. We have continued to lend money out to women all over the world. Our new countries are now Panama, Kosovo, Madagascar and Timor-Leste! This brings the total countries that we have lent to up to 39! Four new countries might not seem like much, but it’s a big jump because we have already lent to almost all of the countries where people are commonly looking for loans, so it’s a slow process to find suitable people from new countries.

Also we had a request from an e-Club Member to lend to some women in Cambodia, so we have chosen 3 women to lend to from that country. Their names are Heang, Yon and Tha; they are all in the farming industry and working hard towards providing for their families. We have now reached over $2,000 lent out to the hardworking women around the world who need our help.

If anyone else has any other requests, feel free to send them to me or message me at any time so that I can have a look for the particular country or type of loan that you would like. I’m always happy to take requests; it’s great when other e-Club Members can get involved in the KIVA Project.

We are well on our way towards this Rotary year’s goal of $3000 in loans in over 50 countries. I shall continue to keep you all updated as I get more exciting news.

Kind regards,                             

KIVA Committee Leader
Lauren Jewson


KIVA Update October 2014

Hello everyone!

Time for the annual KIVA report! For those of you who aren’t aware, KIVA is a microloan program that allows us to give small loans to people who need it. Currently, we have lent $1,225 to various different people from all over the world. We prefer to donate only $25 at a time and to individual women. Due to this, we have lent money out to 49 different people in 20 different countries. The 20 different countries are: Armenia, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Georgia, Honduras, Iraq, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Mexico, Mongolia, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Senegal, Tajikistan, United States and Vietnam. Of our 49 loans, we have 7 who are currently fundraising, 19 who are currently paying back our loan and 23 who have already paid us back.

In the last twelve months, we have lent money to 15 new people. All of these loans are either being fundraised or are being paid back currently. Just to give you an idea of the types of people that we loan to, I’ll give you a bit of information on 2 of the people we have recently lent to.

Nazira is 39 years old, married, and together with her husband, is raising three children. Nazira lives in Kyrgyzstan. Nazira and her husband practice livestock breeding and crop farming. She started this business 21 years ago with an initial purchase of cattle. Thanks to Nazira's hard work, she currently has 1 milk cow, 2 calves, and goats on her farm. She also cultivates a 4.40 hectare plot of land on which she primarily grows beans and clover. The gathered harvest is sold to wholesale distributors. She is requesting a loan to buy cows to increase the size of her herd. Nazima plans to invest the earnings from the loan in the further acquisition of livestock. She also intends to save money to build a new barn for her cattle. We lent her $25 of her requested $1,850, which has been fully funded.

Sharafniso is a good-hearted woman. She is 53 years old and lives in a village in Hamadoni, Tajikistan with her husband and four children. Sharafniso has always been a housewife and has not worked anywhere. All these years she has been running their domestic lives and raising their children. Now that her children are grown, she has a lot of free time. She wants to use this time to start her own business. Sharafniso loves to look after cattle--she has one dairy cow. She wants to start business fattening and selling livestock. Sharafniso also wants to earn her own income and feel independent. She does not have the seed capital, and thus took a loan to buy a few steer and calves. Your support is important to her. We lent her $25 of her requested $2,000, which has been fully funded.

As always, we welcome any person who would be interested in joining the KIVA committee. We are a small committee at the moment, but would love anyone to join us in the future. J. Feel free to contact myself, Lauren, on Facebook or on the KIVA Committee email (kiva@rotaryeclubnextgen.org).

Regards,

Lauren and the KIVA Committee


KIVA Update - January / February 2014

Good day e-Club, KIVA Committee leader here. I just thought I would give you all a quick update on KIVA in general and our specific loans in particular. Since Kiva’s founding, over 500 million dollars has been lent to 1 million borrowers in more than 72 countries around the world.  We, personally, have made 34 loans to 15 different countries. KIVA has given us some updates on two women that have received loans from us. Sakina in Pakistan has been able to upgrade her business, enabling her to serve more customers at once and is very happy with what she has achieved since her loan. And Rasulan also from Pakistan has been able to purchase another Buffalo to increase her monthly income and her savings.

As this is the last day of 2013, I believe it’s great to get such good news from KIVA. I hope that 2014 can be just as good and that we can step it up a notch, and get to the 50 loan mark! We are always accepting donations, no matter how small. Just remember to state that your loan is for KIVA specifically. Also if you’d like to work with myself and the committee, feel free to message me on Facebook or drop me an email at:  kiva@rotaryeclubnextgen.org

KIVA Update - October / November / December 2013

I’ve decided that every few months I’m going to do an in-depth report for KIVA so that everyone knows about everything that has happened in the last few months. I’ll go over the loans that we’ve sent out as well as the different people and countries we have loaned to. But first I would like to thank Louise Thomas from the Gold Coast for her contribution to the KIVA fund. She’s been wonderful and has also picked two new people to loan to, Ozoda and Merary. Ozoda is from Tajikistan and is asking for this loan to work with her daughter in law to open a sewing business. Merary is from Honduras and her loan is for an expansion for her internet café so she can start giving computer lessons to those who need it.

Now for the e-Club’s KIVA portfolio. We have given out 29 loans to date. Of those 29, all of them have started repaying their loan and 3 have already completely paid back their loans. We have lent a total of $675 even though we have only $425 in the account. I think this is a wonderful thing, to be able to loan money, get it repaid and then loan it out again to another person in need. We have loans out in 12 different countries, ranging from the Philippines to Pakistan to El Salvador. As was already decided by the KIVA committee all of the recipients of our loans are female. We believe this is for the best to try and help those who are struggling in countries that don’t have the same level of gender equality as we are able to live in.

Some of you will remember Susan, who I spoke about in my last KIVA report. Susan is the only person that we have sponsored so far for Higher Education. These loans are quite difficult as the recipient cannot pay back the loan while they are still in school so the loans take some time to come to fruition.  I believe that this adds to the portfolio of the e-Club, with us not only loaning to those who can repay their loans straight away, but also to those who need some extra time and some extra effort in the completing of their loans.

I’m very fond of this pet project of ours and would love to help others also become involved. If, like Louise, you would like to donate money to the KIVA fund and pick the recipient of your donation, I would love to hear from you.  I don’t think that KIVA should be something that is solely the division of the KIVA committee, if you’re interested feel free to just drop me a line on Facebook or via Email.

KIVA Update - August / September 2013

KIVA is a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty.  Our e-Club/KIVA Committee supports 23 people at the present time.  We have recently increased to that as many of our previous people have re-paid a good chunk of their original loan.  I would like to introduce you to Susan from Honduras we have sent her $25.00 to help her pay for her tuition fees and graduating expenses for her Masters degree. We in the KIVA committee believe that Education is extremely important and are pleased that we can help someone else improve their level of education, in part, through our loan.

KIVA is a powerful and sustainable way to empower someone right now to lift themselves out of poverty. 

If you would like to donate you can donate through our e-Club website using the "donate" button, please remember to mark it for KIVA in the comments section.

KIVA Update - May / June / July 2013

We are currently giving out 17 loans, they are all being paid back at a steady rate. The most we have been paid back at the moment is by Ana from Peru who is up to 70% paid back. This month I'll be talking about Ana and her story. Ana is a young 18-year-old woman who is single and lives with her parents and siblings in the city of Cañete, in the Imperial district. She is a very kind, hard-working, and enthusiastic person who has a great desire to improve.

Unfortunately, due to a lack of financial resources Ana was not able to study for a nursing career because from a young age she had to work in order to help her parents with the household expenses. 

She feels very committed to her family since she is the oldest daughter and worries a lot for her two younger siblings, whom she loves and wishes to be able to provide a good quality of life. With much determination and dedication, Ana has worked for more than a year in her small business of raising and selling guinea pigs. She works every day from the early hours of the morning when she begins her work in search of food, cleanliness, and care for her guinea pigs. She asked for a loan of $250 and we helped her out with $25 of that. The KIVA committee thinks that Ana is a good person to loan to and we wish her all the best with her future plans.

KIVA Update - March / April 2013

We have received more repayments from our loans. All of the people that we have loaned to are currently repaying us and repaying us on time, so that’s great. Our highest payment is Ana from Peru who we are helping with her animals on her farm. She has repaid 45% of her loan to us. We got to $75 so we were able to loan out to 3 more people. Our three new loans are as follows: Badamjav in Mongolia for her tailoring business, Thuy in Viet Nam for her Barber Shop and Kadii’s Group in Kenya for their farming. This is the first time we have loaned out to a group so we will see how that goes. Hopefully we will be able to loan out to more groups in the future.

KIVA is going well, we have 17 loans out at the moment, and are loaning out over $300 at the moment. KIVA is always looking for more funds and in future we are considering doing a fundraiser to increase our funds. We look forward to your assistance when we do hold our fundraiser. We are hoping to have at least $1000 in our KIVA fund. This will enable us to be able to loan to many more people and help as many people as possible. Not to mention the repayments will be such that we can loan to a new person almost every week.

The KIVA committee is always looking for new ideas and new members. Feel free to contact me, Lauren, as the head of the KIVA committee. You can contact me at: kiva@rotaryeclubnextgen.org. We hope to hear from you.

KIVA Update - January / February 2013

Things have been very exciting recently. We received our very first repayment about a week and a half ago. It was $1.83 from a lovely lady in Mongolia who is starting a barber shop in her town and needed some capital to buy various items she needed.

Of the 14 loans we have given out, each person has received the total amount of money they needed and they have all started repaying the loan. We, personally, have received payments back from 12 people. These repayments range from $1.25 to $3.69. We now have $51.29, which means we are ready to give loans out to two more people.

Currently the committee has agreed to give out $25 to each person we consider worthy of a loan. The committee is currently looking for two more people that we think deserve a micro-loan to help with their future.

We're always looking for more members and if anyone would like to have a look through KIVA.org and see if there is anyone they would like us to give a loan to, feel free to contact us. Feel free to email me, or message me on Facebook at any time to chat about KIVA and what the KIVA committee is up to. And if you would like to help by donating to our KIVA fund we would always be very appreciative.


For more information please contact our e-Club KIVA Director:  kiva@rotaryeclubnextgen.org