news from kiva.org ...

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Dear James,

Thank you for supporting small businesses in the developing world through Kiva.org. Your $100.00 loan to Imongolet Abraham, administered by Kiva's Field Partner, Women's Initiative to Eradicate Poverty, in Uganda has been refunded. $100.00 is now available to you as Kiva Credit. The next time you log into Kiva.org, you'll be able to re-lend this credit to another entrepreneur, withdraw it or donate it to help support Kiva's operations.

Reason for the refund:

As you may be aware, each business on Kiva's website is posted by one of Kiva's 60+ Field Partners in 39 developing countries. A Field Partner is an independent microfinance institution that has a history of lending to the poor for a social purpose. They screen each entrepreneur, post his/her profile on the Kiva website, and administer your loan.


Kiva routinely audits each Field Partner to ensure your loan is being dutifully administered to the entrepreneur you've selected. In the course of auditing our Field Partner, Women's Initiative to Eradicate Poverty (WITEP) in Uganda, Kiva discovered that some entrepreneurs were not receiving the full amount of their loans.


This violates Kiva's policies and we have terminated our relationship with WITEP. All of the loans made to entrepreneurs served by this Field Partner have been refunded. We hope you realize that our audit uncovered a true exception to the norm; the vast majority of our Field Partners administer your loans with the highest integrity. Kiva will continue to audit Field Partners to ensure your loan is being dutifully administered and to make our website a model for transparency in international development.


To help inform your choice of Field Partner as well as entrepreneur, we have launched a new feature on the site which helps you evaluate the Field Partner's performance in your lending decision. See www.kiva.org/about/partners/ for details.


We hope that you give lending to the working poor another chance by re-lending your Kiva Credit to a new entrepreneur on our site.


Sincerely,

The Kiva.org Team

p.s. To re-loan your credit to another entrepreneur, log into
http://www.kiva.org/ pick an entrepreneur and select
"Pay with Kiva Credit" when you checkout.
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Frontline/World, April 10, 2007.
"Uganda: A Little Goes A Long Way"
Show synopsis: "A San Francisco company has taken the idea of microfinance and upgraded it for the Web. Radio reporter Clark Boyd... travels to Uganda for FRONTLINE/World, where the first recipients of money collected through Kiva's Web site are building and expanding businesses. Watch the video here:
- http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/uganda601/uganda-601.html?c=3qt


I LOVE IT !!! We cut out the banks !!!


-- Our plan is not to fix the old, but to create the new. --

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when I hear talk of abundance ...

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Maybe it is only in my own thinking, but more and more, as I listen to other people talk about Internet marketing, and the inevitable talk of "abundance" comes forth, what I hear is only what that person can acquire, can capture and hold, what that person can accumulate for himself or herself, from the "occupation" of Interntet Marketing.

That "occupation" usually requires the assistance of others, an ever-expanding "army" of those who will follow in lockstep to go out and find others who will follow in lockstep some pre-packaged, manufactured, and fully polished version of ... "marketing"

I see no way I am going to write this and NOT be misunderstood by 95% of readers
- many of whom would argue ...

"Why write it at all ?"


Recently I read a plea asking why so many people saying they want to "network" turn out to be "not serious" - written by someone seems to me has coloured in the page in her Network Marketing colouring book to her complete satisfaction so she knows exactly what "networking" looks like, and anything which presents itself as networking which does not fit that image is frustrating to her, deceitful, wasting her time.

Abundance slaps us smack in the face and we do not feel a thing ...


Internet is a marvelous tool, and using it this morning, on my way to accomplish what I had set to do today, the while still procrastinating other tasks (one of my less admirable skills), I was sidetracked with a trip to Burma ...

... after which I was presented with:
"That's Me, Sitting Outside Of My Home In Hawaii. Keep In Mind I Haven't Always Made Over $35,000 Per Week, From My Home... "


Now this is where it gets hard for folks to follow what I am saying ...

I have NO objection to a person making use of the natural abundance which surrounds us all, the same natural abundance that is within us all, to make life for SELF just as good as it can be, and consequently to make life better, and good as it can be for family, and friends ... and why stop there ?

What I do not understand is how thinking is so often limited to "what I can get" - as if Internet Marketing and all the riches promised on all the "hyper" sales pages all over the Internet was "my little secret" that I can only talk about with my "virtual friends" on the Internet, because I know if my REAL LIFE partner knew how much I spend to "get rich" I probably would not HAVE a partner ...

... but it is not just that: What is worse, to me, is that I seldom, very seldom, hear anyone who actually is "making it" - even "in the process" of making it - express any sort of plan to do anything about anything other than to *GET RICH*


I want to ask Mr. Bronze Hawaii, making "Over $35,000 Per Week" ...

"What are you doing with it ?"

Do you pay for everything with cash now ?
- no longer supporting banks with ongoing interest payments ?

Have you equipped your home with solar and wind power generation so you are "off the grid" and feeding back into it ?

What percentage of your income goes to help people who can barely afford a computer, much less a "marketing system" ...

... to get a foothold on a path toward making "Over $35,000 Per Week" ... ?

How much of your "Over $35,000 Per Week" goes to make sure no one in your community is going hungry ?

How much of your "Over $35,000 Per Week" goes to make sure no one in your community has to sleep outside when it is dangerously cold, or go without clean water every day because they have no place to call their own, even to pitch a tent ?


There are some simple things I expect Mr. Bronze Hawaii, making "Over $35,000 Per Week"
... in all his "free" time to KNOW - for instance:
(at least within some country, some portion of the world)

- How many homes were burned to the ground yesterday to drive people off their land ?
- How many women were raped yesterday after their husbands, who defied the local dictator, were murdered ?
- How many children burned to death yesterday, or were shot, because they were born to people who occupy land some government wants ?
- How much of what you pay in income tax (you do pay income tax ?) goes to ...
... help the hungry ?
... help the homeless ?
... help the abused ?
- How much goes to make war ?
... to dispossess free people of their land ?

- What does abundance mean to you ?

What DOES abundance mean to you ?

I am asking, hoping to learn something new today ...

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