Subject: Kiva helping fill in missing countries

Date: Mon Nov 20 23:13:17 2017
User: malr
Message:
For anyone who wants to lend to as many countries as possible, Kiva is now showing which countries you're still missing and taking you to them. Just made my first loan to Zambia. Helen

Date: Tue Nov 21 21:12:57 2017
User: Snowguy
Message:
Don't you mean Nambia? ;)

Date: Wed Nov 22 22:27:50 2017
User: Snowguy
Message:
Team Freecell has lent to borrowers in 78 of 84 countries, including countries currently inactive in the program. (We number 29 members) (We are still looking for new team members.) What you do is to lend $25 to a borrower in some country, but the money goes via (first) KIva.org, and then a micro lending group in that country. The micro lending group both vets the borrowers, and often trains them in money management, etc. The micro lending group reports periodically from the field on how the borrowers are doing. Say you, and other lenders who could be from any number of countries put together a requested loan of (say) $750. And, say the loan is for 9 months. Every month for those 9 months, a proportional share of the money is returned to each lender's account. (In this case, 1/9th of each lender's loan.) So, after 9 months, that loan is fully paid. The monies, once restored to each lender's account, is available for re-lending purposes, or the lenders can withdraw the money at any time from their account. (Our team has, so far, lent over $40,000, but please note that most of it is money that has been returned and re-lent, again and again!) Some of the money has likely been lent at least ten times. I see we have a new member, joined Nov. 18. I will have to look into it. (I see it's "Freddy" who is apparently a member of many teams.) I wonder how dedicated he will be to lending via our team. I will have to check into that.

Link: Join Team freecell