women's history: take 3

In honor of International Women's Day, during this Women's History Month in the United States, Kiva was promoting loans to women, with a perk of $20 credit to loan to another.

Of course I jumped at that opportunity!

My first microloan of $25 went to Manuela Christina Olivia last night.

Moments ago, I followed that with a microloan of $25 to Ruth Nohemi.

Both are young women in their mid-20's in Guatemala.

Both do sewing and embroidery and have a loyal clientele.

Both are now hard at work preparing special works of Easter finery.

 

Both are making better lives for their families.

These loans would not be available to them without help from Kiva, and the support of its lending community, to a small finance company.

Both are enriching their communities.

By successfully gaining funding via Kiva, more people in their communities will be able to gain monies for their goals.

Their repayments will enable the small finance company to help others make the community a better place for all.

Both will have renewed self-confidence in their futures.

Both will be able to pass along that sense of self-worth to their children as well as to others in their lives.

By helping these two people, I have helped so many more.

I feel a sense of self-worth akin to that I had when I donated blood.

I am so grateful for that.

I could have spent that money on events this past weekend -

SCAD had "9 To 5: The Musical" at the Lucas Theatre -

BC and St. Vincent's had "School House Rock" at the Trustees -

Hindsight Film Festival had a variety of documentaries  at SCAC -

"The Sound Of Music" was at the Historic Savannah Theatre -

or I could have seen Savannah Rep's play again -

any of which would have run about the same cost as one of those loans.

I'm proud of myself for the choice to help young entrepreneurs, rather than to entertain myself.

I'll have plenty of other opportunities for play time.

(smile!)