During the past two years, the word “Kiva” has been buzzing around the SHC campus. What is it? What does SHC have to do with it? We hope to address questions and concerns you may have about Kiva.

Kiva was inspired by Muhamad Yunus, a Bangladeshian who invented microcredit and spearheaded the microloan movement. Kiva founder Matt Flannery fell in love with this concept of “microfinance”. What is microfinance? Good question.

People in impoverished areas, especially women, do not have the resources necessary to take financial risks. Manual labor usually dominates their lives, leaving them with only enough money to barely survive. Microfinance seeks to encourage the poor to take out loans. Microfinance distributes tiny loans with minimal interest rates, almost ensuring that the loan is paid back. Yunus first popularized this movement in Bangladesh, leading his country out of extreme poverty and earning himself a Nobel Peace Prize.

Kiva thrives on this principle. Hoping to expand beyond Bangladesh, Flannery first instituted microfinance in other impoverished countries before moving onto more developed nations. By using the method of crowd-funding, where other people fund borrowers, Kiva does not get involved financially. People from all over the world can loan money to hopeful entrepreneurs on Kiva’s user-friendly website, and get paid back 98% of the time. Since Kiva is a non-profit organization, the borrower pays minimal interest to his/her local microfinance institution that is affiliated with Kiva and which coordinates transactions and business procedures on the ground. Kiva empowers a hopeless individual with the tools to take control of his/her life.

In April 2013, SHC seniors taking Economics participated in a service-learning project which allowed them to create and run their own business. This culminated in the first-ever SHC Kiva Carnival, where students had the opportunity to showcase their businesses and services. This included food, games, clothing, and much more. As a result of the Carnival’s success, social-studies teacher Abi Basch was invited to speak at the inaugural Kiva U Summit, a movement initiated by Kiva hoping to raise awareness for itself and microfinance. For four days, Basch and five current SHC seniors listened to speakers, met with Kiva officials, and interacted with teachers and students from all over the country in an effort to come up with techniques to educate the world about Kiva.

As a result of the success of last year’s service-learning project, the SHC social studies department hopes for the class of 2014 to continue the new tradition. On January 27th, seniors gathered in the theater to learn more about the project, microfinance, and Kiva. As they watched a documentary about Yunus’ project and listened to speakers from Kiva, students got excited to start working on their businesses as well as promote Kiva and microfinance. The class of 2014 hopes to welcome all students, faculty, and families to this year’s Kiva Carnival on Tuesday, April 8th during the white period in the plaza.

Now that you have learned about microfinance and Kiva, we encourage you to make a loan to somebody of your choice using Kiva. Also, please come out and support the class of 2014 at the Kiva Carnival!