The Kiva Project is a charitable website that lets the person who is donating look through potential candidates in third world countries. Once the donor looks through the website and decide which cause they find most worthy, they can donate either the full amount the candidate is looking for or any amount that they see fit. The great thing about this project, though, is that once the donation goes through, the donor eventually gets paid back.
One of my professors asked us to pretend we had $1,000 and explain who we would give our money to and why.
After looking through the Kiva Project, I chose to “lend” my $1,000 to Simon Kamenchu Ringera. He is asking for $1,050 total on the website to help his pharmacy buy more medicine. I felt that this was an important cause as I am always hearing about problems of sickness and low medical resources in Africa. Therefore, I believe that something such as medicine would be more beneficial than say, someone just asking for money for a beauty salon. Medicine is an important resource that can help a lot of people in need. Though not all people may be able to afford the medicine, I am hoping that it would benefit a decent amount of the population where he lives. Also, the fact that he is looking to expand beyond his medicine shop could be good. He might be able to somehow incorporate the farming he does for extra income with his pharmacy, and since his wife is a business woman they could collaborate ideas and hopefully make it a worthy investment.
Since he has a wife and three children to support this would be good for him. I like the idea of donating to someone who not only helps the community with health issues but also has a decent sized family to support. He will be able to help more than just his family with this venture which is why it is such a positive one. That is why I chose someone with a little less financial need. Knowing his family and the community would benefit made it clearer that it would be a worthy donation.
Another factor to take into account is that he lives in Kenya. Kenya is 147th in the Human Development Index. This is out of 182 countries. Clearly the country is in need of things like medicine that could improve their quality of living. The development has improved very little from year to year so they could surely use some help. Also, the Human Poverty Index is at about 42%. That is almost half of the country. If we are able to give the money to someone who is doing something beneficial for the country then more opportunities for Kenya might be found. Kenya has dug itself into a deep whole when it comes to their poverty rate and standard of living, but with the right tools much can be done.
It is easy to see that the Kiva Project is a great way to give back to those less fortunate than us without experiencing too much of a loss. The money may be gone for a short amount of time, but it is guaranteed not only to come back to you but also change someone’s life.
