Microfinance and a free Kiva trial

Since we came to Panajachel, I have been working with an international non-profit NGO called Friendship Bridge (Puente de Amistad), which provides microcredit and education to Guatemalan women so that they can create their own solutions to poverty for themselves, their families, and their communities. They have several offices throughout Guatemala and are headquartered in Lakewood, Colorado.

Friendship Bridge has a partnership with Kiva, a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Kiva leverages the internet (crowd sourcing) and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, to let individuals like yourself lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world (pick Guatemala!).

This video from Kiva does a good job of explaining it in a nutshell.



A few years ago, my boss Sue gave me and my co-workers each a Kiva gift certificate for the holidays, and since then I have been hooked on Kiva lending (thanks, Sue!).

If you´ve never tried it, I highly recommend you give it a go. An anonymous donor is currently offering a free trial to new donors so you can try Kiva for free. You get $25 to make a loan free of charge. Your $25 will be disbursed to a business owner, who will repay it to the sponsor. If you want to put up your own dinero, the repayment comes back to you.

I´m so grateful to have the opportunity to support these two very fine, very effective organizations. I am responsibe for visiting Friendship Bridge/Kiva clients at their repayment meetings where I conduct follow-up interviews (in Spanish or with a translator who speaks their Mayan language), and drafting the stories that are then posted to the Kiva website and sent to those who helped to fund the loan (That could be you! Just sayin'...).

Interviewing clients in Chichicastenango. My shirt makes me look like a missionary.

This charge has taken me to more off-the-beaten path areas that I otherwise would not get to see, and of course, brings me face-to-face with amazing women who have made tremendous strides in improving their lives. So far I have met with six groups in Quetzaltenango, Patzun and Patzicia (Chimaltenango) and Canton Patzibal (Chichicastenango), and the experience has made a believer out of me: microcredit combined with education makes a real difference.