Kiva
Since my K2 trip, I’ve used my expeditions to support people around the world that weren’t as fortunate as me to be born in a rich country. In 2009, I supported Doctors Without Frontiers. And since the Broad Peak expedition in 2011, I have chosen to support Kiva. Kiva is an organisation that brings lenders and borrowers of small amounts of money together. To achieve this, Kiva works with a number of organizations that provide microfinancing. These organizations will find people that need a small amount of money to start up or improve their business. Through the website www.kiva.org anybody can then lend money to these people. Kiva takes care of the administration. The borrowers pay back the money gradually and the invested money can then be used to help someone else.
20 % of the money collected from publicity for my expeditions has been invested in microfinancing through Kiva. At this moment, the total invested amount adds up to 5914 $. 27661 $ has been paid back on time (the paid back amount is bigger than the total invested amount because the repayments have been reinvested and those reinvestments have been repaid again and so on) and of that amount 27600 $ has then been reinvested in other projects. This means that at this moment, I have supported 355 different projects for a total amount of 34775 $. In the course of the next months and years, these projects will be paid back and I will be able to reinvest this money again in other projects. I should be able to increase the value of support I provide to projects to about 36000 $ by the end of 2016.
Below you can find an overview of the current status of the loans:
With the support of:
Each project is supported for a maximum amount of 100 $. This means that the risk is limited somewhat, but it also means that each borrower needs to convince more than one lender to invest in his/her projects. Below you can see how the currently outstanding loans are split geographically.
I have a preference for supporting students that borrow money to pay for their education. That is why I have mainly supported students in the last couple of years. Below you can see how the currently outstanding loans are split per activity.
If you want to find out more about Kiva, then take a look at www.kiva.org.
