I thought I had come up with a completely original idea for my paper, thankfully someone thought of it before I did. Please take a look at www.kiva.org, and see how easy it is to directly help someone on the other side of the world. The more of this we can have, the faster we'll reach the goal of eradicating poverty. By this I mean using technology to facilitate positive interactions between people around the world. Hopefully our generation will see borders fall not because of guns, but because people will no longer see the need to differentiate themselves by arbitrary borders drawn hundreds sometimes thousands of years ago.
I've donated $25.00 each to fisher women in Samoa, and an man who own a ice cream cart in Mexico, imagine the possibilities.
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About Me
- Payam
- I'm a student at the USC School of Public Health. I'm writing this blog in order to fulfill a requirment for Dr. Gurinder Shahi's class on Emerging Trends in Global Health at USC but also so I can begin setting the path for my future in the field of Global Health.
6 comments:
hey payam,
thanks for posting this! kiva is a great site. one of the best features is that you can post journal entries and read entries from your borrower. that way, you can encourage them with kind words (me) or even sound business advice (you). they even have a link to a free translator website if you want to try writing in the borrower's language.
i like how you posted your business owners up there...the whole site makes things personal, which helps people connect and get involved. plus, it is not a donation. with the default percentage so incredibly low, it's far more like putting your money in the bank for awhile than anything else.
I agree with Farah, it's definitely much better to let a random business owner in a developing world make money off your donation than some bank exec. It's interesting to see how the world is really starting to equalize.
what do you guys think about creating some form of venture capitalist organization through Kiva.org. Meaning that we pool money together from our class, in monthly or annual installments, then loan the money to individuals of our choosing. It would serve two purposes, one to help the individuals needing loans, and second it would be a way for all of us to keep in touch over time as we progress in our careers.
This site is awesome. It's a great way to humanize monetary donations. Another value I see in this is it allows for relationship development between the individual lending the money and the business owner. I'm in with creating a PM 565 spring 2007 venture capital organization to provide loans thru this web-site.
Thanks for the site! There are certainly ways to help combat poverty, now we just need to find a way to approach the public and have them contribute.
thanks for sharing this with us, and also putting forth the idea about using Kiva with the GHR. Its these kinds of creative ideas that move things forward.
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