Investing in People

--by rupamodi, posted Feb 20, 2007

Today, an incoming email gave a 'success confirmation' to one of the greatest ‘small investments’ of my life. No, it wasn’t a car, a house, or a new gizmo. I chose to invest in a human being who needed working capital to pull herself out of poverty. Her emotionally connective story was posted on a website of a SF based non-profit, Kiva.org. Six months ago, I made a micro-loan to this seamstress, Deisy Hernandez of Mexico. Today, Deisy made a full ‘repayment’ on my $25 investment; but, rather than extracting, Stella Nogiomwan of Nigeria benefited from my personal choice to ‘re-invest’ those funds into her business which will take 6-12 months to prosper and repay me.

Through this experience, I’ve learned that people are good if you just inspire them to take action and provide them a platform to do good. You see who your money is going towards – exactly how it’s working – and you get it back. And you do it again! Shopping for a business to invest in, placing it in your ‘shopping cart’, using a CC or a PayPal account to make the transaction – a wonderful model to alleviate global poverty in the developing world. Giving someone a chance is one of the most rewarding feelings ever.

1413 Reads

Posted by rupamodi
Feb 20, 2007
Comments (4)

Readers Comments

ari1969 wrote: Good Rupa, this is soem new stuff on doign good and making a difference in someone's life. First, kudos to you for your good work, next best wishes to all who have started to think about contributing thro.' kiva.org.

austinfriends2 wrote: Ooo, This is amazing. I am going to look into this right away. Thank you for sharing.

ieiblue wrote: hey.. so nice of you.. i hope to try it too...:P

Satish wrote:
A great step forward in helping the poor and needy but honest and enterprising human beings. May your tribe flurish

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