Alley Cat Allies

Made a donation today to Alley Cat Allies, a non-profit I have been supporting for years.

Alley Cat Allies is the only national advocacy organization dedicated to the protection and humane treatment of cats. An engine for social change, Alley Cat Allies was the first organization to introduce and advocate for humane methods of feral cat care, particularly Trap-Neuter-Return, in the American animal protection community. By establishing and promoting standards of care, our organization has brought humane treatment of cats into the national spotlight, now embraced by major cities and animal protection organizations coast to coast. In 20 short years, we’ve changed America to better understand and respect the lives of cats.

Today, more than 500,000 supporters look to Alley Cat Allies for leadership in the movement to protect cats’ lives. We promote progressive policies for cats in communities all over America and we work towards a world that values the lives of all animals. Our two decades of experience in grassroots organizing, hands-on activism, and education has empowered policymakers, veterinarians, nonprofit and volunteer groups, activists, and caregivers nationwide with the tools and knowledge to practice, teach, and advocate for humane care for cats in their own communities. From a headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, Alley Cat Allies’ staff of more than 40 people provides the national voice for cats and the millions of Americans who value cats’ lives.

New Billard table in Peru.

Made a kiva loan today in 'games' activity. It was to Abigail in Peru to buy a new billards table.

Abigail is 20. She lives in the family home with her husband and two-year-old son. Her little boy is her reason for being and she does everything she can so that he will never suffer want. She currently works in a restaurant in the mornings. She has another income in the afternoons, renting billiards tables in her home.

She will use this loan to purchase another billiards table, which will generate her a greater income. Her dream is to have her own space for a restaurant and billiards tables.

Tourism on Kiva

Made a loan today in the 'Tourism' activity on Kiva.

Nver lives in Dilijan city. He is the only one who makes money in the household. He is married and he has two children. For many years Nver earned his family's living by doing a worker’s job. 

The city where Nver lives is very nice, famous, and a perfect rest zone for tourists and Armenian people as well. Dilijan considers it to have the purest salubrious nature and the most bracing air in the whole region, since here forests are virginal and anyone who comes here just admires it and falls in love with this place. That is why this city has a lot of comfortable and high quality rest houses. 

At one of these sanatoriums Nver works now. He works here as a sanitary engineer, but as he says work in rest houses is seasonal and in autumn and winter, tourists are very few, so his family income becomes low as well. Nver owns a nice cute farm, where he breeds two cows and a calf, and he manages to sell a lot of milk right from his house. 

Now Nver has a good, profitable idea and he needs some help to realize it; he has a big garage near his house and on the bottom of it he wants to build a small guestroom which he plans to rent to tourists during summer. He asks for a loan in an amount of 1,000,000 Armenian drams in order to manage to start building his small guestroom.

Kiva in the USA

Made a Kiva loan in the USA today, to George.

George was inspired to start S.I.R. George to help families communicate more efficiently with and provide support for children with special needs. Having a daughter with special needs, he not only had the knowledge and experience to help younger parents, but also the empathy and patience for new parents of special needs children. 

George created his business in 2009 and is striving to reach more families in need. While George currently has one volunteer administrative assistant, he hopes to optimize his company’s outreach by having a fully functional website and increased advertising, repairing special communication equipment and eventually supporting a staff of clinicians with the goal of facilitating the creation of a support community of families with special needs.

George hopes to optimize and increase outreach to families with special needs and create personalized care for each child to foster increased conversation between parents and special needs children.

New Kiva activities

Made two loans today, two new kiva activities loaned to.

More loans today. Working my way through activities. 4 more down...

Loan in the US

I made a loan to Joao in the USA today..

Kiva loan for a coffee machine in Armenia

Made a loan today for a coffee machine in Armenia.

http://www.kiva.org/lend/671150?invite_url=a6lhxUV41Oc&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=fb-share-business.msg.0&utm_content=julia23&fb_action_ids=10153846365035521&fb_action_types=kivadotorg%3Amake&fb_source=aggregation&fb_aggregation_id=288381481237582

Made a Kiva loan to a Kiva lender in the USA.

Made a kiva loan today to someone in the USA who is also a kiva lender.  Wheel comes full circle!  Wish I lived close enough to use their smog testing business.

A Kiva lender himself, Jesus recognizes the difference that microlending has made in the lives of others. Now, it is Jesus’ turn to reach out to the community in order to transform his passion for fixing cars into a viable business.

After emigrating from Mexico, Jesus (pictured left) attended Southwestern College’s automotive program with his close friend David (pictured right). After graduation, they elected to open D&V Smog Repair by pooling their funds together. Starting with very little money, they have spent the past three years at their Chula Vista location gradually increasing the amount of services they offer. 

“Once we were out of school, we were idealists, but it turns out you really have to start small when starting a business,” Jesus explains.

The necessary equipment they need to keep their shop up-to-date and running is expensive. Jesus and David recently realized that they needed a new smog test machine to meet the state’s current test requirement. As avid advocates of microfinance themselves, they sought out local microfinance organizations and took out a $10,000 Kiva loan to fund their purchase.

Kiva gave them the opportunity to continue to grow their business, while they remain in full control of how their business is run.

“We love being independent and not working for someone else. There are always risks, but it is better this way,” says Jesus.

While they currently primarily perform smog testing, Jesus and David are ultimately interested in purchasing the necessary equipment required to repair brakes, lights and cooling systems. As their business continues to expand, they hope to one day purchase the building that the repair shop operates in.

Kiva loan to Jordon

Made a kiva.org loan today to Dalal in Jordon to help with his dry cleaning business.