[H off topic] Happy New Year!

[Teresa Kramer]

If you have not checked out the greatest thing (after homeopathy) to come down the road in 2007, please do click on www.kiva.org and look at some of the person-to-person loans that have been funded by folks like us this year. I’m not asking you to loan, just to know about Kiva. If you don’t click as soon as you see this, there may well not be a loan to fund since the site has often been totally funded over the past two weeks.
With $25 and a credit card, people all over the developed world (including one man in Iran, among the 20,000+ lenders!) are contributing to the improved well-being of simple people in developing countries (37 countries presently) who need a small loan to improve their family’s well-being. Over 2007, almost $17 million were loaned through Kiva with a repayment rate still standing at 99.80%. If you want to know even more, check out www.kivafriends.org , where Kiva lenders get together to exchange ideas and even…poems.
When I’m not reading Minutus and such, I teach two Chinese teenagers English skills. Their moms “pay” me in Kiva gift certificates. The GC I got yesterday, I loaned to the woman in Pakistan whose business description I have copied for you below. I can’t send the photo that goes with it, so do check Kiva to see what’s up in the world of microfinance. If Dr. Hahnemann were still alive, I’m sure he would have $25 (or more) riding on a Kiva loan! It’s gonna save the world—well, together with Dr. Hahnemann’s art and science, of course.
Happy New Year to all! Teresa (Northern VA, USA)
Business description from a loan funded yesterday:

“I live in Lahore with my husband and three children. My husband has left the army and now runs his rickshaw (local three-wheeled personal transport vehicle). We want to pay off some of the rickshaw so that we can cut down on the interest payments and need a loan to do this. We also want to start a grocery store in a few years from now, where I can sit or my son can sit and sell simple basic goods. I hope that we can use some of the profits from the rickshaw to do this.”