Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty—I Will Do Something
October 15, 2008 by Lillie
When I applied to college many years ago, I was surprised to learn that I was entitled to financial assistance below our family’s income put us “below the poverty line.” I had no idea we were poor. We had plenty to eat, a safe place to live, and lots and lots of love.
Millions of people around the world live in poverty, and they don’t have plenty to eat and a safe place to live. What is considered poor in our affluent country (still affluent compared to much of the world despite our current financial crisis) would be considered fabulously wealthy by people living in harsh and unrelenting poverty in third-world countries.
It’s easy to think the problem is so huge there’s nothing we can do. We can’t feed millions of hungry people, but we can improve the lives of one impoverished person or a small group of poor people. Volunteer at your local food pantry. Donate to an international relief agency. Participate in charitable activities of your church or organization. Make a microloan through Kiva.org.
Kiva allows individuals to make microloans to entrepeneurs around the world. You can loan money in increments of $25 to a specific entrepreneur profiled on the Kiva Web site. Your money is pooled with the money from other lenders and distributed to the entrepreneur through a field partner—a microfinance institution that handles the loan. The receipients of loans probably wouldn’t qualify for loans through regular financial institutions, and when you accept the Web site’s terms, you accept the risk that the loan may not be paid back. But the field partner for the loan I made has worked with more than 4000 entrepreneurs and has a default rate of 0%. I’ll wager that’s a lot better than most commercial banks experience!
When your loan is repaid, you can keep the money or make a loan to another entrepreneur. An investment as small as $25 could be loaned over and over again to make a difference in the lives of a number of individuals, their families, and their communities.
Maybe I can’t eliminate global poverty … but I can help one person become self-sufficient.
I am only one, but I am one. I can not do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I can not do interfere with what I can do. ~ Edward E. Hale
Hi Lillie,
It is easy to become overwhelmed by the need and believe there is nothing we can do. However, as you point out when we focus on one small thing, we are making a difference. I am also a Kiva supporter and take great joy in seeing what a small amount of money means to another. A few cans of food for a family can make a difference, it really does not take much.
By the way, I am having wacky issues with my reader, the latest post to show up is the Frozen Earth post. Very strange.
Karen,
We all want to do great things, but Mother Teresa reminded us we should do small things with great love.
Hmmm. I’m not sure why anything should be showing up in your reader, but I’m fixing broken links, and my recent comments list is showing all those fixed links as new comments. When I exported the blog from the old site and imported to the new one, I ended up with nearly 350 broken links. Many were external links, especially on a couple of lists (Personal Development Bloggers and DoFollow Blogs), and I just unlinked those. Some were images, and I’ve had to upload those again. Many were internal links to old posts. When I started the blog, I used the default URL—with the date and the post number. Later I changed to the date and the post title. At the time, I had a plugin that redirected existing links to the correct URL. However, that too was lost when I moved the blog, and all those old links are broken. I’m going in and changing them (using the Broken Links Checker plugin to find and fix). However, those links are showing up as new comments even though they were originally made a year or two ago.
I’m down to about 100 broken links now so that will continue for a little while longer.
Hi Lillie – Great post – Kiva is a brilliant organisation and it has helped so many people already. Plus it’s great that they do it as a loan instead of an outright gift.
Cath,
Yes, I agree that making a loan is much better than making an outright gift when people are trying to become self-sufficient. People need to feel proud of their accomplishments when they pay back their loan rather than dependent on others.
Hey…awesome post.
Great program that Kiva runs, I’ve heard about it in the past…but haven’t yet been active. I really need to get involved.
It’s awesome to think that $25 from my pocket can get recycled through to help numerous individuals/families become self-sufficient.
Allen,
Like you, I had heard about Kiva and wanted to do something … but I had procrastinated. Blog Action Day spurred me to get involved, and I’m glad I did.
Thanks for your contribution with this post Lillie.
As I live in South Africa I’m faced with ‘real’ poverty all the time. I try to donate my time and money to help where I can. I try to contribute to organisations who help people climb out of their situations.
It’s hard for someone in the U.S. to do the same as they are not really ‘close’ to people to help. But Kiva.org is a very good place to start. I think I’m going to make it one of my monthly giving goals.
I recently made a trip to the U.S. (coming again this November) and I was shocked by the lack of poverty and poor people. I really couldn’t find any! And I’m so used to it here.
We have poor all over, 25% unemployment and 20% AIDS/HIV.
I’m going to move to the U.S. at the end of the next if all of my plans work out, it’s hard to know that I wont be able to actively help like I am now. But I’ll just have to be proactive!
Again thanks for your contribution on awareness
Tertius,
Thank you for sharing your experiences. We in the US are so used to good fortune that we don’t realize how blessed we are. And thank you for being proactive to help improve conditions for the poor people in your country. I’m sure there are advantages to being on the scene—you can see and respond to the real need and you are able to personally take action. On the other hand, I imagine it might be easy to get discouraged when you see so much poverty and illness. You can do a lot and still such pain and need all around you. But you continue to help others.
Well, Lillie. I’m also will join this parade and hope some of the unfortunate people will benefit from our act!
wilson,
I’m glad you will participate in helping others through Kiva. Just a little bit by many of us can make a major difference.
Lillie,
This is a creative way to tackle world poverty.
Kudos!
Sally,
Just thinking of “world poverty” is overwhelming. But I can handle making a microloan to one person trying to improve their life.
I am glad to know that there is such an organization like that. Who are willing to lend money to people who are struggling for their daily needs… Does it work for Asian countries too?
Actually, many of the entrepreneurs are from Asian countries. The group I loaned to is in Cambodia and is a group of 15 villagers setting up a bank to support all their micro-businesses.
Lillie,
Thanks so much for this post. I remember reading about Kiva (or a similar site) a few years ago, but then I completely forgot about it. Now it is bookmarked.
This year has been very tough for me financially, but I believe that 2009 will be a prosperous year and I know I need to give back to the world by helping others make it as well.
Stacy,
I had heard of Kiva before and hadn’t done anything until Blog Action Day motivated me to take action. It’s easy to overlook important things like this in the busy-ness of our daily lives so occasional reminders are good.
Lillie, I found the problem and it’s not you, it was my reader. All of the blogs in my reader were not showing the latest post. I haven’t checked it yet today but hopefully Google has gotten their act together!
Karen,
Thanks for letting me know. Hope your feed is back to normal.
I’m not glad you had a problem with your reader … but I’m glad it was your reader problem instead of a problem with my feed.
fabulous post. Thanks for writing about Kiva. I will definitely check that out.
Peace,
Evelyn
Evelyn,
I hope you find Kiva something of interest to you. I like the idea of giving loans rather than giving handouts.
Yup, we just have to push forward.
The word says that we will always have the poor with us. That really just tells us that we’ll never be out of people to give to and help. What a blessing!
Seeing the change in one family, helped a family add a new room onto their house (just moved out of a shack) the other day. They were really grateful and you could see that now they don’t have to all (5 of them) sleep in one room.
But seeing that one change makes it worth while
Tertius,
What a wonderful attitude you have, and what a blessing your giving was to that family … and I’m sure to many others you help.
in this busy days people dont have time to think abt that but u did that …I will look into that and surely will do some thing
Andrew,
I think Blog Action Day is a good reminder to all of us. I’m glad you’re going to take action.
This is a fabulous post and I’m glad I stopped by to read it. Kiva, what a caring, giving organization helping so many lives. It’s great to see
Ashley,
Kiva is a great organization, and I hope mhy post has generated a few more supporters for Kiva.
What gets my goat, is that there are tonnes of food just lying in storage units, food mountains, milk lakes, why can’t governemnets just give this food to the people who need it?
I would love to see the end of global poverty.
Tony
Tony,
I agree that food should be distributed to hungry people. But it’s also necessary to create a constant supply. If all the stored food is given away without creating more supplies, there will be no more stored food but there will still be starving people. Aid needs to be delivered promptly to people in need, and long-term solutions also need to be developed.
[...] loan. The cycle can be repeated endlessly, making your gift of $25 or $100 priceless. I made my first Kiva loan as part of Blog Action Day: Poverty. Dynamic fundraising meter for your Red Kettle [...]
I often wonder if there really is enough food to go around but it is just a matter of the logistics of getting it to those that need it. We certainly seem to have a glut of food in the US.
Karen,
You have a valid point. Unfortunately, in many places where poverty is most severe, governments or people trying to grab power are actively keeping food from the people who need it. I can’t imagine that kind of evil but know it does exist.
It’s really amazing what someone can feel like when they do good for someone/others. Recently I have been feeling this way because of a tailgate I attended. I was looking around at everyone having fun eating and drinking themselves like they didn’t have a care in the world. Right then I witnessed a homeless person digging through a trash can. Lets just say we put a lot more food on the grill than anyone at the tailgate could eat….it felt really good to do something for someone and this is just the beginning.
Ryan,
I’m glad to hear that you are taking action to do your part.
Change can start within yourself and it can make a difference. The problem of poverty is too big for one person to handle but if each one of us will make a step forward its a big difference than than doing nothing.
Absolutely agree, Johnson.