Kiva

International Literacy Day 2014

/ edebock / 2 Comments

Right now, you are doing something that one in five people on the face of this planet cannot do!

As one who values my ability to read above most other skills, I find that an appalling statistic! According to the World Literacy Foundation, an estimated 67 million children around the world do not have access to primary school education! Equally disturbing is the fact that almost two-thirds of the world’s illiterate adults are women. Given that statistic, it’s hardly surprising to learn that the majority of the world’s poor are also female.

Today is International Literacy Day, a day for shedding light on the desperate need to ensure that all people have the opportunity to learn to read and write. Education is a basic human right, but one that many people are denied, particularly in parts of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The problem is not restricted to underdeveloped parts of the world, however. Literacy rates in Canada are high, around 97 per cent, but what does that really mean? While they may have basic decoding skills, the most recent literacy study by Statistics Canada shows that millions of Canadians do not have the literacy skills they need to keep pace with the escalating demands of our society and economy. A whopping 48% of Canadian adults over the age of 16, many of them new immigrants, have low literacy skills that do not adequately equip them for the workforce. The situation is similar in the US.

But what can we do? How can you and I overcome such an enormous global issue? That’s where the Starfish Story comes in (adapted from The Star Thrower by Loren Eiseley).

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We cannot solve the world’s literacy problem, but we can make a difference for one or two.

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This is Marie. My husband and I have been sponsoring her through New Missions, a small organization operating in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, since she was in primary school. She now attends high school and dreams of becoming a nurse. For approximately one dollar a day, we provide her with the opportunity to go to school in Haiti where only 2% of the children finish high school and about 40% of the adult population is illiterate. She also receives a hot meal at school each day as well as regular health check-ups and medical care when it’s needed. There are many similar organizations, including World Vision, that offer you the opportunity to provide a child with the chance to go to school. Perhaps that child could be your starfish!

I also choose to give Kiva loans to impoverished women in third world countries who are helping support their families and educate their children. By investing in women’s lives, society as a whole benefits because women typically reinvest 90% of their income back into their families. In so doing, they break the cycle of illiteracy and help lift their families out of poverty.

Closer to home, encouraging literacy is as simple as reading to a child! Fill your home with books and let the children in your life see you enjoying the gift of reading.

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One in a million!

/ edebock / 7 Comments

I received an email this morning telling me that I’m one in a million!

“Kiva just hit the 1 MILLION lender mark! You are now officially one in a million inspiring changemakers, pioneers, and poverty fighters! We can’t thank you enough for helping Kiva get to this point.”

Since I don’t want every post I write to be about living with cancer, perhaps it’s time for another one about this amazing organization. I first learned about Kiva in 2010 when I read the eye opening book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Kiva is a non-profit organization that allows a person to lend as little as $25 to a specific low-income entrepreneur in one of 72 countries around the world. Though Kiva provides loans to both men and women, I choose to lend to women who are borrowing money to purchase specific items that they will use to generate income to help them support their families and educate their children.

Since March 2010 when I made my first loan to Rann Sar, a Cambodian mother of four who wanted to purchase two cows to begin a breeding program, I have invested in a variety of livestock, numerous sewing machines, some hairdressing tools, two restaurant refrigerators, two stoves and a portable food stall like the ones we saw on the streets in China. But how can $25 purchase a cow or a stove? It can’t. Many lenders pool their resources to fund each loan.

Over the past three and a half years, I have made a total of 22 loans but I’ve only invested $125. How is that possible? As each borrower makes a monthly payment on her loan, my share of that payment is deposited in my Kiva account and I receive an email notifying me of my updated balance. I could withdraw the money at any time but instead, as soon as my balance reaches $25, I search the Kiva database and choose another woman to lend to. I can’t begin to tell you how excited that makes me! This truly is the gift that keeps on giving.

I recently heard it said that people around the world are praying for things that we take for granted. That really impacted me. We are so blessed and we take so much for granted. With Thanksgiving just around the corner (this weekend in Canada and next month in the US), perhaps this is the perfect time to think about helping someone else achieve their dream, feed their family or send their children to school. It’s as easy as clicking on the logo below or the Kiva banner in my sidebar and investing $25!

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Coming to terms with 60

/ edebock / 6 Comments

I absolutely loved being 40. By then I’d lived through some of the best and the worst that life has to offer and figured that I’d learned a few things along the way. I had a past filled with memories and lifelong friends and I had a future to look forward to. 40 was a fabulous midway point!

50 was great too! By the time that birthday rolled around, I was looking forward to early retirement and all the adventures that would follow. My fifties have included everything from climbing Mount Fuji to travelling the length of Vietnam on overnight buses to flying over the jungle of Costa Rica on a zipline!

I really haven’t enjoyed being 59 though because 60 has been hanging over my head all year! I want to embrace the next decade with the same enthusiasm that I greeted my 40s and 50s with but it hasn’t come as easily. 60 is such a big number! No longer can I fool myself into thinking that I’m still young. In fact, middle aged is a stretch unless I truly expect to live to be 120!

You’d think that I would have adjusted to being 59 pretty quickly. Immediately after my birthday, we spent several days with my parents. My mother who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease is obsessed with people’s ages.

“How old are you?” she’d ask.
“Fifty-nine,” I’d reply.
“How old are you?” she’d ask again a few minutes later.
“Fifty-nine,” I’d say again.
Over and over and over again.
“I’m fifty-nine.” “I’m fifty-nine.” “I’m fifty-nine.”
It didn’t really help.

Now 60 is just over a month away and I’ve been thinking about ways to celebrate; ways that might make the transition easier. One of the things that I’m passionate about is making micro-finance loans through Kiva; loans that give a hand up to women who are less fortunate than I am. Last night I invested another $25 in Kiva and gave myself an early birthday present.

Most of the women that I’ve given loans to have been younger than I am because loaning to mothers with children in their care has been one of my priorities but this time I decided to look for a woman who was 60. Kiva doesn’t list borrowers according to age so finding her took awhile. I scanned the long list of women in need, looking at each thumbnail photo for one who looked like she might be 60. Sadly, I clicked on many well worn faces only to find that they were much younger. I was reminded again how fortunate I am to have had the life I’ve had. Finally, after searching through many profiles, there she was. Sofai!  My loan will enable her to purchase chemicals, sprayers, shovels and fertilizers for her small taro plantation on the Pacific island of Samoa.

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Over the next few weeks, I’m going to be looking for other ways to celebrate my “coming of age”. I’m not sure what they might be.

Any suggestions?