What A Relief!

Today I thought I had sad news. A few months ago I lent to a group of women in Pakistan who each had their own means of income. One was a seamstress, one a hair stylist, etc. The reason I had chosen to make a loan to Pakistan was because I had been seeing how many people were being displaced due to the US' presence along the boarders where there were supposed Taliban hide outs. I hate how the 5 o'clock news shows missiles flying overhead and entire towns being blown to smithereens. Um, there are people there. I don't want to sit here eating my bowl of cereal watching people die. But that's another story. Anyway, I was watching and reading these stories about how so many people were being pushed out of their homes and had no where to go. So I did what I could to help keep their economy going by lending to their people. (as we all know by now, government aid rarely actually helps. Giving Pakistan government money would do no good. We need to get money into the hands of the people. Go Kiva for being awesome.)

Today when I logged in, I noticed that this lending team was delinquent on their payments and my heart dropped. Not only could one person in this group not pay, but the rest of the group was not able to come together and cover the shortage? (lending teams support one another. If one person cannot pay, the rest of the team is responsible. Go read Banker to the Poor for further explanation. It's awesome) I wondered what could have happened that would make it impossible to make their payment. Were their homes destroyed? Was business just that bad? I'd rather they feed their families than pay me back... But then I noticed that Kiva's field partner, Asasah, had a 50% delinquency rate and got suspicious. Kiva has a 98% repayment rate, how could this ONE lender have a 50% delinquency rate. So I investigated... and found good news.

The reason for the high delinquency rate is because they are having trouble transferring money out of Pakistan. I know how difficult it can be to move large sums of money in to or out of countries, I can empathize with them. They have the payments from their loanees and as soon as the Bank of Pakistan sorts through the issue, all of the money will be disbursed. So I can sleep well tonight - It is safe to assume that my Pakistani women are safe and sound and prospering in their business.

Whew!!

A Lesson in Ethics

Unicef is an organization that does everything they can to protect children from all kinds of harm, help solve gender inequality issues, and provide an education for children who otherwise would never touch a book, learn to read, or learn to write. They are an amazing organization and have done a lot of good in our world.

(www.guardian.co.uk)

One of the projects that Unicef supported was ending the use of child labor in garment factories in Bangladesh. It's 'child labor'. It's bad right? Of course ending these practices would be a good thing, right? Unicef thought so too, until they learned of the consequences of pushing children out of relatively safe work environments and into a workforce much less friendly.

Garment factory workers are relatively well paid and work reasonable hours which leaves both time and money for children to put themselves through school. Without factory jobs, many children are forced to work as maids who have no time off for attending classes, and who make about half as much as factory workers. Or worse, they work 'off the grid' in unsafe, under paid, sweat shops.

So what did we learn? Imposing morals and practices followed in the US may not work for all countries. Unicef backed this movement to get children out of factories because we would never do that here in the US, but didn't take the time to think about how pushing them out of those jobs would simply push them into others. Their families still need to pay rent, they still need food, and they still need money to fund their own educations. Pushing children out of factory jobs actually ended up doing more harm than good.

See an awesome video on the topic here

Charity:Water has infiltrated Moo.com

Yes, that is right. Charity:Water has infiltrated Moo.com. Charity:Water has been one of my favorite non profits for a long time now, so of course, I am always excited when I find them in other places. The more reach they can get, the better!! Here you can buy a pre designed set of Charity:Water post cards or greeting cards to send to your friends and famiy. With every purchase Moo.com will donate $11 to Charity:Water. You get post cards, they get moolah (haha, I'm so funny...) Also check out Charity:Water's twitter feed for a daily photo of projects they're currently working on.

Postcards $19.99
Buy this on MOO.com

September Kiva!!

Hm... You know my life has gotten boring when all I ever have to talk about is Kiva. :)

So today I made my Kiva loan for September. This one went to a Teth Sopheap in Cambodia who does a little bit of everything. She raises ducks and sells their eggs, raises pigs for slaughter, and cultivates rice crops during the summer. She has a husband who is a motorcycle mechanic and five children, many of whom work for the local water company. Even with all of the work her children and husband do, it still does not bring in enough money to support all of them.

Cambodia is one of the ten poorest countries in the world. Most people there live very much like Teth does in that they work for themselves on multiple different projects to bring in income for their family. This is why I chose to lend to Cambodia this month. They are hard working people, yet still struggle to meet the basic needs that many take for granted. Obtaining an education is nearly impossible for most and rising above poverty is even more difficult.