Come join Team Stuck In Customs! We do all activity through Kiva, a great way to intelligently move money and resources around the world.
I recently announced that a percentage of all book profits from my HDR Book, “A World in HDR” will go to Kiva. Cool!
See below for more!
The Greatness of Kiva
I have lent money to a small potato farm in Peru started by a 25-year-old mom named Elizabeth, a bicycle repair shop in Vietnam managed by a gal named Nguyen Thi Huong, a car mechanic’s shop in Lebanon run by a gentleman named Ali, a small livestock operation in Tajikistan run by a 47 year old gentleman named Tochidin, a small meat market in Ghana run by a 70 year old woman named Ama, a mom named Essi in Togo who sells dried fish, a 24-year-old gal in Ecuador named Cristina who sells rice, sugar, and tuna, and last, a 41-year-old woman in Nicaragua named Gladis who sells cosmetics and jewelry so her children can have a better quality of life.
I do these things because I believe in capitalism and free trade more than government.
As a strong libertarian, I believe the government typically creates more problems than it solves. Their intent is often to help people, but it rarely does a good job of it. What really helps people is other people, freedom, free trade, cooperation and competition.
I believe that a good small business creates wealth. For example, the Elizabeth in Peru buys seeds and small plots of land to produce potatoes. By the time the potatoes have grown, they are worth more than the seeds and the time-cost of the land. Everyone becomes wealthier, happier, and more healthy because of this. So, in this case, money really can buy happiness!
In “Trey’s Book List” you can see I recommend a book called “Free to Choose” by Milton Friedman. If you’d like to find out more about this sort of thing from this Nobel-Prize winning economist in a very easy-to-read book, I highly recommend it.
If you would like to do the same thing, you can put in as little as $25 to Kiva.org. They are a great organization! You can donate easily via PayPal and you get regular updates as you are repaid. So far, I’m getting repaid at a steady click, so I have NO DOUBT about the system they have in place.
November 9th, 2009 05:36 | Peter Scrimshaw
What a fantastic idea, to lend a helping hand to others that are doing all they can to get themselves out of poverty!
November 9th, 2009 10:27 | Join Team Stuck In Customs on Kiva!
[...] for “A World in HDR” will go to Kiva. I have written a little bit about Kiva on the Charity page here on the site. Also, I made this little video to tell you what the heck Kiva is. If you [...]
November 10th, 2009 12:05 | Jeff Bargas
This is great! I’m in.
November 10th, 2009 15:22 | Frank Kehren
There is an interesting article in NYT about what KIVA does – and more interesting about what it doesn’t do:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/business/global/09kiva.html?_r=1&sudsredirect=true
November 10th, 2009 21:32 | Stuck In Customs
Yes – I’ve seen that. I know that there are micro-finance organizations that distribute the loans and collect the interest. That doesn’t bother me one bit. I never expected that these entrepreneurs in Ghana would walk up to a Kiva ATM and just get money out $25 at a time.
Kiva has developed and manages the entire system, and I think that is great.
November 10th, 2009 23:22 | Bitguide
I pre-orderd a book from a guy in Austin and just funded a dairy guy in Mongolia. Capatialism looking good.
So now i’m wondering what happens if you capture some of these
Kiva enterpris’s images during your travels?
November 26th, 2009 02:11 | Dresden just after Dusk
[...] So far, we’ve gotten over $1,900 donated, so that is great! You can find out more on the charity page or a recent post on the Kiva [...]
December 2nd, 2009 02:29 | First of Numbered Series on eBay, New York Party, Twitter winner!
[...] First in the numbered series of prints. Just as with the books, a percentage of all profits goes to Kiva (click for the Charity page here). The auction only has 2 days left (Newsletter subscribers found [...]
February 26th, 2010 00:02 | The Gentle Bridge
[...] glad you guys are having fun on the Charity page here on the site. We’ve already done more than $3,000 for Kiva, and that is great! [...]
February 26th, 2010 19:41 | jimmy brown
Hi Trey. I am so glad to see other fellow photographers like you donating to Kiva. You are changing lives. I myself have made over 80 Kiva loans and hope to reach 1000 before I kick the bucket! I have created a lending team http://www.kiva.org/team/photographerfriends
We presently have just 4 members and are looking for more. If you are a photographer or love photography please consider joining won’t you. Loans that change lives – jimmy brown