Once, years ago, my friend Kim brought me a handmade bracelet from Africa. She told me the villagers had dismantled nearby phone lines for the copper to make it.
Did you know that 13% percent of Americans either throw away their pennies or toss them into penny jars? That’s a lot of copper. I was so broke in college that at the end of the month I had to roll pennies for groceries. I made a game of it with my preschool son. I learned to like rolling pennies. It’s relaxing.
The things we take for granted.
Today, Annet Tumuhaise and four friends in Uganda want to grow their small business in “home products sales.” They need $1,700, which they plan to use to buy supplies. I don’t know what they make. Maybe bracelets.
They’ve applied for a loan through kiva.org, a new nonprofit microfinancing organization that makes it possible for little people with a little money to help little people without any.
This is how it works: You go to the kiva site, where you can see all the projects people have proposed and the amount of the loans they’re requesting. You and others donate to a project. Kiva sends the money you donate to the organization/association that is sponsoring the loan request. That organization disburses the money to the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur repays the loan gradually to the organization, which returns the money to Kiva, which returns the money to you. Then you can pick another project or projects. (Of course, you don’t have to wait for the loan to be repaid to continue donating.)
Just think about it. You could lend the same $25 to project after project after project. What a beautiful idea!
Yesterday, when I started writing this post, Annett had raised $425 of her $1,700. This morning, she’s up to $850. She has 28 days left to reach her goal. I think she’ll make it! Do you want to help?
I learned about kiva through Claire’s article, Plus belle, ma vie en ligne. Evidently her article brought over 500 French donors to the site! I’ll be translating it into English for kiva soon. Pro bono, of course. It’s the least I can do.
American pennies haven’t been made out of copper for about fifteen years. Too expensive!
In surfing around for info for this post, I read that to make a penny out of copper would make it worth a nickel… The Euro 1 and 2 cent pieces are absurdly small. They really need to discontinue the 2 cent piece. It’s ridiculous to have both! They both accumulate way too fast. I have no idea how to deal with them. I’ll have to go to the bank and see if they’ll give me penny and two penny rolls…