Cantr II Discussion Forum

If you have trouble thinking of a good gift to give to your friends, relatives and co-workers, give them a gift that is guaranteed to make everyone feel great!

Kiva is a very, very legitimate organization that gives small loans to people in developing counties so that they can start or improve small businesses. Kiva's motto is 'loans that change lives.' Some of these loans are as small as $75 but make a huge difference to the people who receive them. Kiva combines the loans from several different donors to make up the total so one lender can make a difference with only $25.00.

Read about it here.

http://www.kiva.org

You can buy a gift certificate for as little as $25.00. The person who receives it (your friend, relative or co-worker) gets to choose, from the website, to whom they would like to loan the money. And then everybody starts to feel really good! Yay!

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=gift&action=home

And if you want you can also purchase green wristbands that say Kiva and I'm a Loaner

http://kivastore.org/order.php?item=k001

There was a large influx of people lending after Oprah talked about it some weeks ago, in case you think there are few candidates.

Yes, that's true but that rush will probably die down after a while and they'll need more lenders eventually. Also, I'm sure there are plenty more people out there who need loans and will be signed up.

Edit: Actually, I just looked and there are tons of businesses in need right now.

I don't have a lot of money but I decided to loan $25. It was really easy, too! Not a lot of forms to fill out, it took about three minutes.

Here's the description of the person I chose:

Señora Flora is 34 years old. Her husband abondoned her and her 3 young children. Since then, she has taken matters into her own hands. She decided to move ahead with her life and to take care of her family.

During this time she did a lot of odd jobs just to pay the bills, but unfortunately she did not do well in any of them. Finally, at the request of her children, she decided to fix a little area in her humble home to accomodate for a telephone/radio booth (call center). She bought the equipment little by little and with a lot of sacrifice since most of the equipment was very expensive. Currently, this type of service is in high demand since this is the only way some people can communicate regularly with their loved ones, and due to Señora Flora's good customer service her clientele has increased.

Señora Flora and her children work from 5:30 am until 8:00 pm. They are requesting a loan in the amount of $325 USD which they will use to upgrade the equipment in order to offer great service to the public and to increase the earnings for the family. In order to do this, they are asking generous people for support!

And here's the link to her page if you want to see the phone booth she built in her house.

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=busine ... t&id=19754

If any of the rest of you become 'loners' I'd love to know who you chose.

Bumpity bump bump

Of course, if you don't want to do that, you could improve the lives of blind computer users and have a good laugh by buying the Guide Cats for the Blind CDs - humorous poetry by Les Barker performed by UK celebrities.
[url]http://www.bcab.org.uk[/url]

[EDIT: Fixed the link, there was a line break in the wrong place. /ceselb]

I got an email from the agency in Peru which distributes the money saying the Senora has received her loan. This should work out well for her since a lot of people will probably want to make calls to their relatives at Christmas.

My lady made her first repayment of $55 right on time. I'm so happy she's doing well.