Sixteen Honest Women

I thought it was time for a quick update on how things are going with my micro finance experiments with KIVA. Kiva is an organisation that negotiates small loans to individuals in the third world. (More on KIVA Here)

This post concerns a loan I made ($25.00) to a Paraguayan business being run by sixteen women. It has just come to term.

The Paraguayan New Horizons group. Loan repaid in full

About 120 of us built the loan so the total loan amount was $2750.00.  The loan was for this group to purchase stock so they could be self supporting, running their own catering business.  While the interest on the loan is consumed by the micro-finance bank as their fee for the arrangement, I still got back the money I lent out. On time and to the penny.

If I want, I can now withdraw the money, or I can re-lend it out. Probably the latter - for now

Needless to say, standard greedy banking practice would not have entertained such a paltry loan. Especially to a group of women in a third world country. They would much rather lend a few million quid to some corrupt elite so they can buy a few nice new Limo's or rocket launchers, and then default.

So, in the Third World, honest but poor people repay their loans. Unlike many of their ruling elites.

Sound familiar?

Meanwhile here, every major charity consumes all of you money. Your money disappears into a black hole.

Has it done any good? - the guilt ridden propaganda says so.

Or has it just lined the pockets of the Great and the Good?

You tell me.

At least with Kiva you have the opportunity of getting your money back - and seeing who it is lent out to. OK you take a small risk that the loan may go bad. But Hey! That's life.

Say you committed to "give" £15.00 a month to some standard charity to do some anonymous "good" work. Over 20 years that is £3600. Gone

If you lend it out through Kiva after 20 years that money will still be there. Owned by you. It can still be re-lent out or if you or your family need it, then it can be withdrawn. In the mean time it has been helping poor but honest folk in need of a break.

Remember charity should always begin at home. You and your kids come first. So being able to get the money back if needed is a real boon. But this is a really good way of doing a lot of good for common ordinary folk without much risk to your own personal assets.

It is also really satisfying to see you money being used for tangible social gain by real people. That is the beauty of Kiva.

The alternative is the guilty "donation". The medieval style indulgence to compensate for the crime of being born in a developed country.

Maybe your  donation will do some good. Or maybe it will disappear into the coffers of a Mercedes dealership or some Swiss bank account.

At least with Kiva you get a chance of seeing where your money goes.

From now on, when it comes to charity, I'm giving loans, not casting money to the wind like some Victorian Oligarque.

No more guilt trips. No more palm greasing. And certainly no more 500 Series Mercedes for the Great and Good.

From now on, It is Kiva for me.

Kiva: A Hand Up Not A Hand Out

OK you grubby little Englanders.  Today I want to explain how as individuals, we can give a hand up to the decent hard-working poor in the Third World. Not a hand out to the idle gangsters who rule them.

I expect you may have noticed that Billothewisp has a very low opinion of the way UK foreign aid is allocated and spent.

To me it looks more like a never-ending pleasure excursion to fame and riches than a method of alleviating suffering. The fame and riches are, of course, shared out among the Fats Cats at home and the Fat Cats ruling the Third World poor.

Meanwhile the poor sods at the bottom of the pile  get the table scrapings.

Overhanging the whole enormous DFID budget is the ugly stench of graft and greed. Fat cat salaries and cynical exploitation of both the giver and receiver. Read this article in The Telegraph for a quick whiff.

Via our government and it's incredible addiction to Globalisation, we are soon going to be  each "giving" another £500 a year each whether we want to or not.

How charitable.

But people in the third world deserve a hand up not a hand out. Charity should be only for the truly incapacitated, not for the decent people of the Third world. They deserve better.

So Billothewisp doesn't do charity any more. Charity is for the work-house and pompous Victorian oligarchs.

Now there is a better way for a personal involvement in helping the poor of the third world.

It is called Micro-finance.

Small loans to real people in need of a hand up. The crucial thing here is that the money is a loan not a hand out. It gets repaid, and then (of course) can be lent out again.

It appears to work. The main organisation involved in this at the moment is Kiva. I have a couple of issues with Kiva, but nothing that (as yet) would stop me using them.

It is run a bit like the UK peer to peer lending organisations, Zopa and Funding Circle, but Kiva is a not for profit organisation. Kiva allows individuals to loan small amounts of cash to real people. $25 via Paypal deals you in.

The people are  requesting loans to run a business or generally improve their life. Just like in the UK.

The default rate is evidently 1.8%. Which is pretty good. Of course if they default then they don't get another loan. But almost to a man (or woman) they don't default. Which must give us all a bit more faith in humanity.

For Billothewisp there is to be no more "charity" to poor Africans, but there will be loans. I am going to give a hand up not a hand out.

It is a pity that my pay is going to be drained of another £500 so the fats cats in the DFID can go and squander it at home or in foreign parts.

Believe me, with Kiva I think even my 2 year grand-daughter could do a better job with my £500 than the DFID.