I wrote a while ago about the charitable Christmas gifts I tried out on my family in 2007, and I wanted to share an update. As the months passed in 2008 and the new Christmas started approaching I started to receive notices that my gift certificates had still not been cashed in. Around November the notices warned that the gift certificates would expire soon if not used. Apparently my dad had signed up with Kiva, but was having trouble figuring out how to apply the gift certificates to his account. Rather than let the certificates expire I offered to take them over. I applied the gift certificates to my own account and started looking through the many businesses needing loans. I tried to choose a broad range of people and business to loan to, and tried to keep each of my family members in mind.

I loaned to two women in Tajikistan, in two different fields. One is a younger woman who sews womens’ clothes, and one is a mother of five who raises and sells livestock. My third loan went to a young man from Senegal who runs a general store. Finally, my last loan was to a group of sixteen women in Bolivia who sell cosmetics and general goods. Here is my lender page with information about each of my loans.

I made the loans in December, and most have already been significantly repaid. In fact, I have enough credit in my account to make a new loan again! I’m trying to decide between these two businesses:

• Liliana Brigges, Bolivia – Liliana runs a small breakfast cafe. She is a widow raising three children.
• Lubajja Traders Group, Uganda – This group of fish-mongers is headed by Abdul, father of 18 children. The group also raises chickens and grows some other products.

What do you think? Leave your vote in a comment and I’ll post again in about a week with the winner.

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