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

Non-profit Banking and The Five Cs of Credit

Non-profit Banking and The Five Cs of Credit

On Friday, the 9^th of December, Kat Taylor came to speak to our 5^th grade class. She is a former parent at our school who co-founded One PacificCoast Bank with her husband, Tom Steyer. It is a non-profit bank in Oakland with the goal of providing helpful fair banking services to less fortunate communities.  She spoke to us why it is important to give loans to people who would normally not be able to get them.

She also taught us the 5 C’s of Credit (the elements a borrower should have to receive credit)

1.      Capacity (the ability to pay the loan back)
2.      Capital (available money)
3.      Collateral (valuable things the bank can own until the money is paid back)
4.      Conditions (of the borrower and the environment the borrower lives in)
5.      Character (the quality of the person). Middle and high-income people are lucky because banks are kinder to them.

There is also a sixth C which she added after the suggestion of an MCDS fifth grader a few years ago: Community (it is important to have a supportive community)

One PacificCoast Bank treats everyone the same, no matter their income. 

By Ben Buder

Pennies A Day: A film about Muhammad Yunus

We watched a video called Pennies A Day about the Grameen bank started by Muhammad Yunus. Before the Grameen Bank, Bangladesh was a country in great poverty. Nobody was making money. Banks did not want to loan to poor people in Bangladesh because they did not think they would pay it back. Then Muhammad Yunus came up with the idea that he would start a bank where they would lend out money to poor rural people around Bangladesh. The business of the Grameen Bank is micro-credit which involves giving small loans to poor people so they have the opportunity to create small businesses. Loans are made for livestock, crafts and agriculture. Ninety-six percent of the loans are given to women because woman with the loans are cautious with the money and spend it first on their children. Each week the people who receive the loans gather in a large circle to make their payments.  The Grameen bank operates in almost every village in Bangladesh. The pay back rate is 99%. Now Bangladesh has roads and there are lots of small businesses.


By Anna Weisel

An ingredient I would add is confidence.

Recipe for a Good Life

Recipes for a Good Life

In school we are working on recipes to make a good life. It is just like a food recipe but instead of ingredients like sugar or butter we use things like family that make a good life. Kyle showed us her grandmother’s recipes that were worn and in little old containers. She passed them around so everyone could take a look at them. Some of them were hand written in cursive and some were typed on a typewriter. We brainstormed verbs that had to with cooking.  Some of them were mix, stir, sprinkle, and chop.  We also brainstormed measurement words like cups and pinches.  Then we worked on computers to make an ingredients list and then added directions.

What would you include in a recipe for a good life?

Posted by Alise P.

Where Children Sleep

In our class we’ve been comparing how different parts of the world live. We’ve looked at what possessions people have and looked at what people eat in a week. Now, we are looking at how children around the world sleep. First, we made a list of ten or more things a stranger would see if they walked into our bedrooms and saw all of our stuff. Then, we saw pictures of children around the world from a book by James Mollison's called Where Children Sleep with pictures of bedrooms. It was sad to see how some of the kids only had one room houses, or lived outside. There was one kid in Rome who slept on a mattress outside. I couldn’t imagine sleeping outside. There were only three kids that I was able to relate to. I was shocked to find that out.

Posted by Max P.

Our Vision for The Year on Animoto

We got the idea for our Animoto on Twitter, from a teacher in Madison, WI, Pernille Ripp. Mrs. Ripp used Animoto to make a class mission, so we thought we would use her idea and make a Room 22 Vision for the Year. This Animoto was also an adventure. It was completely kid made. This first thing that happened was that the song called Good Life by OneRepublic was a little inappropriate for school so one of the kids in our class' dad edited the song on a software program called Audacity and soon after that word was no longer part of the Animoto video. When the Animoto was completely cleaned up we watched it and are class dignity was restored! That's how we made our Animoto.


Post by Henry S