Our New Member From Iceland
A big Kiva Investment Group welcome to Ari from Iceland, our first 'offshore' member. Of course, to Ari - we're the ones who are 'offshore'. He's our first member outside of North America and we are dead pleased to have him with us. Share your hot investing tips, Ari.Ari brought with him investments in Tajikistan and Mozambique. If you look at the map, you'll see we're now in 10% of the countries of the world. Good going, everyone.
I've been meaning to plug a couple of our member's Kiva blogs. Check them out. Julia's How I Changed The World Today is upbeat. The kid's got a great spirit. Also an Obama activist. (Right now, I'm liking John Edwards. Anybody that right wing columnist Ann Coulter hates so much must be cool. Actually, her invective reactivated my interest and I've started reading about him. So thanks, Ann. I have to do same on Obama.)
Enough USA politics, which must be terminally boring to Canadian and Icelandic Kivites. The other blogger you should read is member Ramon's Ramon's Kiva Blog. He writes about his recent travels in Peru. He has family in Lima, and while there he met with microcredit officials to try to get Kiva started in that country. Has some interesting insights into the people we're lending to.
If you don't know what we're talking about, go click on my Kiva ad in the right hand corner. Then take action. Then join us.
If you already do Kiva, send me your member page link and I'll add you to our group. To find my e-mail, just check my profile page.
Labels: Kiva Investment Group
posted by Christopher Newton at 9:36 AM
13 Comments:
Thank you so much on the kind words about my blog.
I have not been able to email this week due to computer fan issues and I haven't been able to tell you about my new Kiva countries - Tanzania,Democratic Republic of the Congo,Dominican Republic, Tajikistan, and Mozambique. Sigh, I'm such a Kiva addict, I keep checking for new countries! I am trying to stay on budget though, a fixed monthly amount plus what I transfer in from Prosper.com. I find I enjoy bidding on Kiva loans a lot more than Prosper loans.
Welcome Ari! New guy gets the first piece of pie at the next board meeting! After that, it's every man/woman for themself as Spoke is a known pie bandit.
Hi Jenny - and welcome! I'll make sure you get some pie (a piece big enough for you and baby!)
I was just thinking about how some of your clients could benefit from a Kiva loan right here in the USA, or if they had remained in their native lands and had known about it. Maybe we should do some research for them so they could tell the relatives back home.
Welcome, Ari. I've always wanted to go to Iceland but I've never gotten beyond the airport doors on my way elsewhere. Who could resist a country with a whole day devoted to eating cream puffs?
That gives me an idea. Get Portley to open a lunch counter in Iceland and we can go meet there and eat cream puffs and drink coffee.
Hooray for new countries and new members of our investment group!!
There's more pie?
Hey everyone and thanks for the warm welcome! I discovered Kiva a few weeks ago and have to admit it's become quite addictive! I like how some of you have kiva built into your budgets, good idea; I'm still working out exactly how much/often I'll contribute. I don't know what Portley is but if you like salmon, lamb, or creampuffs with real whipped cream ;) then I'll host a meeting here in Iceland anytime! Please don't bash us for hunting whales :) until next time...
I like seafood. Raw shark is best, but I would probably eat whale too.. Thanks, Ari!
Bring on the salmon and cream puffs! Hear, hear!
Welcome, Ari !!
As for contributions, you can do both financial contributions (put your money down on Kiva loans) as your budget allow, as well as "moral" contributions by posting here, or in the kivaloans@yahoogroups list.
We invest $25 per paycheck into Kiva, which is 2x per month. Some people (like Julia) appear to be spending MUCH more (you go, girl!), while others do lots of good publicity but spend less. Again, it's all about how much $ (or €) you can spend or how much time you can dedicate!
Anyways, welcome to the exclusive "Association des Investisseurs dans Kiva du Porc Considérant", short "PP-KIG", "KIG", or "AIKPC"...
Wow Julia, you've lent to 46 people!! and I thought I was doing well with my 9 loans - hehe, not that numbers count, we're all doing good on Kiva. We both lent to Celanda Zabala in the Dominican Republic. You poeple are all so cool! Hi Ramon, I'd read about your investment strategy on your website. You're from Peru right? My mother is Mexican, and I lived in Boston last year attending the New England Conservatory. I emailed a reporter at the biggest newspaper in Iceland today about Kiva, asking her to write about the site. Trying to spread the word in Iceland - goodness knows there's enough money here to lend on Kiva. I haven't seen any loan applications from Mexico recently, have you guys? I'd like to support someone there, and Mongolia, I guess those will be my next two. But hey people, so as an investment group, is there some sort of joint lending we do? Or is this just to indulge ourselves and eat cream puffs together? :)
Ari, you went to the New England Conservatory? What do you play? Any other musicians around here? Maybe we could arrange a benefit concert for Kiva if we ever got in the same place at the same time...
Hi Kirstie! I'm a violinist and work in the Iceland Symphony Orchestra. I started my M.M. at NEC in fall '05 (I'd been studying in the U.S. since fall '01) but won my job last June so I quit school. Still want to finish my degree, so if all goes well I'll do a one-year M.M. at Northwestern in Chicago next year, I'll keep you posted when I find out in April.
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