How Can We Enhance the MCDS Experience with Kiva With Design Thinking?

For the past two months the fifth grade has been using design thinking to enhance the MCDS with Kiva. We had one class every week to learn about design thinking and how to apply it to our  project. We interviewed different faculty and staff about how to enhance the MCDS experience. Most faculty and staff either loaned once and hadn’t visited the site since, or only heard about Kiva at a meeting. We also learned that there was a lot of money that had been repaid in our Kiva accounts and we had not re-loaned.  Every group of two or three people had to come up with a pitch for their enhancement ideas. We presented all of our pitches as a fifth grade. Some ideas were to make a Kiva workshop at school where parents can loan and share Kiva with their friends and colleagues. Another idea was to make a Kiva gift card for the graduating 8th graders from their Kiva funds so that they can keep loaning after they graduate. All of our ideas will be taken into consideration by the teachers and they will choose which ones will be pursued.

Posted By Henry S

Rachel Cook and Her Microlending Film Project

THE MICROLENDING FILM

A woman named Rachel Cook came to talk to us about a movie she made about micro-finance. In her film she told the stories of some of the people that were helped by Kiva.  They were very inspiring stories. She made me realize even more about how important it is to loan to people around the world because they can do so much with the money. The film also talked about what women do for their families if they get the money. Women are more likely to spend their money to help their families.  It was also very cool because she went around the world to these amazing people and talked to them. One of the women Rachel interviewed was named Tabogo and she grew up in a poor slum in Kenya. She got a loan and started a small very successful small store there. People can do great things for their community if they get the chance. To find out more about loaning go to http://www.kiva.org.

By Anna W.

MATT FLANNERY SPEAKS TO THE FIFTH GRADE

Kiva co-founder, Matt Flannery, came to our school recently and he talked to us about how he started Kiva, what made him start it, what challenges he faced, and how it has grown. One of the pictures he showed us was of a Maasai warrior with a cell phone. He said that the cell phone had technology where you could text amounts of money to someone else. Matt said that this made money exchanging so much easier for microfinance organizations and other people. I wish we had that kind of technology. One of his challenges were that people thought it would never work. They wondered who in the world would lend money to a poor person with a chance of not getting it back or something? Matt Flannery proved them wrong. Kiva’s repayment rate as of 4/5/12 is 98.91%. So only 1% don’t pay back their loans. That’s a pretty high repayment rate. I wonder how much the cell phones cost?

BY MAX P.

Robin Donohoe came with Matt Flannery to speak to fifth graders about how Kiva got started.  She works for a non-profit organization called Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation.  They helped provided the start-up money and business advice to Matt Flannery and his partner when they started Kiva.  Draper Richards and Kaplan Foundation gives money to businesses that they believe will make a change in the world. I think that this is a great organization because it gives businesses the chance to take off and actually help the world and people in it. They have helped ideas like:

Girls For A Change

Living Goods

Room to Read

They are great non-profit organizations. All these organizations help to give people a good push up towards a better future. Robin’s Foundation is a special organization that helps the world thrive!

By Lizzy C-C

Loaning to KIVA

The video above shows what happens when 620,000 lenders fund 615,000 entrepreneurs, students, and other microfinance borrowers around the world.

ROOM 22 JOINED THE KIVA MOVEMENT

This month we raised money to give to Kiva. Kiva is an organization that gives loans out to people all over the world. Each person in the class made a $25 loan. Then we chose to whom we wanted to give the money to. We had a whole class period when people loaned to other people all over the world. Some people loaned to people in Tajikistan and other people loaned to Peru, Kenya and Panama, etc... We all filled out sheets about where the person was from and about why the person needed the loan. Making Kiva loans has inspired me and other people in our class to loan to Kiva more often.

By Julianna

Kiva Fundraising

Kiva fundraising was a real rush. People chose different things. For instance, Julianna and I did a bake and jewelry sale. Other people did things like cooking dinner for people, or organizing book sales. We had to raise a minimum of $25. It was very fun and exiting when you got your first customer (or any customer).

The fundraising was fun but there were also some challenges like trying to make the people want to buy your product. It turns out that you have to, as they say, “sell it”. You have to say things like “cookies, brownies, lemonade, all homemade, come and get them fresh…while they’re still here!” It was hard for some people because of shyness. To help the people understand more about Kiva we printed pages from the website but most of the people already knew about Kiva!

All in all, it was fun and hard but what really felt good was the whole idea that we were helping souls get back on their feet so they could pursue their goals or develop their talents.  It felt great to make a loan.

By Elizabeth

Mac Parish

Mac presenting to us about Kiva

In Fifth Grade we got to raise money for Kiva and loan it to a person who either needs it for personal needs or is starting a business. Kiva is a micro-finance organization that puts entrepreneurs on their website, and people who have a credit card and/or PayPal account and a computer can donate to them. So to learn about that, a former student of our teacher came in to talk to us about Kiva where he works. His name is Mac Parish and he lives in Kenya. His job is the Field Support Specialist for Anglophone Africa, more specifically, to help build sustainable relationships with Kiva borrowers. So that’s the background info about Mac, but here’s the info about the presentation and what we learned from it.  

Mac taught us that when you loan on Kiva, it works like this:
1. Kiva partners with a MFI (Microfinance Institution or Field Partners)
2. Field partners upload the loan and stories onto Kiva’s website
3. Lenders browse through people to lend to, then they lend
4. Kiva disburses the lenders money to the borrower
5. The entrepreneurs or borrowers repay the loan
6. Kiva gives the repayments to lenders

To show us how to loan on Kiva, Mac decided he should loan some money to a person of the grade’s choice. Originally, what happened was we were about to loan to a person who needed some money for... pesticides! At MCDS we are very organic so Mac (and our grade) made an executive decision to not loan to that person. We ended up loaning to a person who looked nice so she was our solution. It was that simple. Now that you know how Kiva works, you should try it for yourselves. Just 25 dollars can make all the difference.

Posted By Henry S