2 New Kiva Loans

My daughter sent me a gift certificate to Kiva for Mother's Day. Kiva is a non-profit that loans money to people and institutions who have little or no access to traditional banking systems. I like Kiva because you can pick the area of the world you want to help, the sector, such as education or agriculture, and any other attributes such as green, fair trade, or water and sanitation. When the loan is re-paid you can choose another borrower.

Here are the 2 loans I choose. The photos and descriptions are from the Kiva website.


Greetings from Uganda! This is Godfrey. He is the Head Teacher of Timuna S. School, a mixed school in the rural area of Nakaseke with 350 students. Timuna S. School has requested a loan to cover the cost of installing and maintaining a UV water filtration system to provide clean drinking water for its students.
The school does not currently have access to consistent clean drinking water and therefore has to spend a considerable portion of its budget on firewood, which is used to boil water for the children. Installing a water filtration system will therefore save the school money in the long-term as the cost of firewood will be reduced. The loan will enable the school to purchase a UV water treatment system with a 1,000 liter tank, which will be big enough to store clean drinking water for the students every day.
Timuna S. School will repay their loan from their school fees, which they collect each term. Godfrey ultimately hopes that having access to safe drinking water will improve his student’s concentration and attendance by reducing the number of children that fall sick from water-borne diseases as well as increase the number of students coming to the school.



Erlyn is a 23 year old, young man who lives in the city of Tegucigalpa. He currently lives alone as his family lives in his birth town, outside the city limits. He is studying medicine and is in the last years of his program. With great effort he has been able to reach his goal.

He comes from a close knit, very united and very hardworking family, made up of his mother and his ten year old brother. From a very young age they faced very difficult situations as they lost their father to a terminal illness. This required Erlyn to work and fight for his family. Today his situation has worsened, due to the demands his university studies place on his time.

His mother is a dressmaker, but due to health issues cannot work. She has inspired him to continue on this long road. Erlyn is a respectful, responsible young man. He is enterprising and enthusiastic, and motivated by a desire to succeed in order to reach his academic goals. This will help his younger brother in the future to fight for his own dreams, as Erlyn plans to support him in his studies.

Erlyn wants to contribute to the development of his country through the health field, offering his talent to others and his family, by providing better conditions of life, health, food and education, leading to a more prosperous life and success. Erlyn has been marked by the difficult stages illness has caused his family. One of these took the life of his father, and caused his mother to suffer. Little by little she recovered her faith and hope in both the love of God and the love of her children, in order to continue being the pillar of her family.

Erlyn's future goals are to work, to strive to move his family forward, to provide his mother the care she needs, and to provide his brother the education he deserves.
His mother,the person who is very proud of her son and with a wish to always grow, she is Francisca and accompanies Erlyn in the profile picture.