Kiva: Help give someone you don’t know a fair go.
October 6, 2009 on 4:24 pm
Filed Under:News
Junrey Alamin fixes electronics and appliances in his village Dalacon, Phillipines. On June 4th this year, Paglaum Multi-Purpose Cooperative, a lending company funded by private lenders via Kiva.org, lent Junrey US$150 to buy equipment and materials for his business. Although Junrey lives below the poverty line, he had paid the money back in full by August, 4 months early.
Here’s some more info from the site:
“Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty.”
“Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.”
“The people you see on Kiva’s site are real individuals in need of funding – not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs’ profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need.”
“ Kiva partners with existing expert microfinance institutions. In doing so, we gain access to outstanding entrepreneurs from impoverished communities world-wide. Our partners are experts in choosing qualified entrepreneurs. That said, they are usually short on funds. Through Kiva, our partners upload their entrepreneur profiles directly to the site so you can lend to them. When you do, not only do you get a unique experience connecting to a specific entrepreneur on the other side of the planet, but our microfinance partners can do more of what they do, more efficiently.”
“Kiva provides a data-rich, transparent lending platform. We are constantly working to make the system more transparent to show how money flows throughout the entire cycle, and what effect it has on the people and institutions lending it, borrowing it, and managing it along the way. To do this, we are using the power of the internet to facilitate one-to-one connections that were previously prohibitively expensive. Child sponsorship has always been a high overhead business. Kiva creates a similar interpersonal connection at much lower costs due to the instant, inexpensive nature of internet delivery. The individuals featured on our website are real people who need a loan and are waiting for socially-minded individuals like you to lend them money.”
What an awesome idea, infact Time Magazine voted it one of the World’s best websites for 2009.
What happened to Thundercat Events?
September 4, 2009 on 7:00 am
Filed Under:News
For those that remember www.thundercatevents.com and have ended up here, don’t worry we’re still the same people. We’ve just expanded and developed our vision.
Firstly, Thundercats and it’s logo are registered trademarks of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. This stopped Thundercat Events from becoming a legal entity and therefore restricted it’s activities. As an incorporated association, Positive Action League of Australia can issue memberships, run a comittee, hold a fundraising licence and much more, enabling us to be a fully-fledged Non-Profit Organization.
Apart from the legal indentity, this change also positions us as a pass holder in the global fight for basic human, animal and environmental justice. To grow and flourish means to be adaptive to change, and this is just what we intend to do.
We will still be holding events, and much more. The organisational scope has changed and no longer exclusively, but still includes, underpriveleged children. It now has 4 distinct divisions. These are Earth, Humanity, Animalia and Science. All of these divisions have their own specific goals yet all share the same ultimate goal: to improve our world with positive change.
R.I.P. Thundercatevents
Long live P.A.L.A.
Welcome to the headquarters of the Positive Action League Australia (PALA)
September 3, 2009 on 9:13 pm
Filed Under:News
The Positive Action League is a league of activists. It is designed for people who want to stop talking about improving the world we live in and do something about it. Our mission statement is “To promote and facilitate fun, responsible, positive activism in the world community with focus on improving the progress of Earth, Humanity, Animalia and Science.”
We want to invite you to join in our activities and will be offering memberships in the next few weeks. We have four groups dedicated to the 3 Elements of PALA, these groups are Earth, Humanity, Animalia and Future. Each group has defined goals both long and short term which will be outlined in each group section. You can find these group sections in the top menu.