I placed 10 items up for sale on eBay to begin this project in the $20 challenge. I figured that the sale of these items should raise a few hundred dollars and get the ball rolling on this project fairly quickly. It didn't take long to record the first two sales (buy it now) which netted $100 in profit which I have started to use to pass out loans to people on Kiva.
The first loan went to Gurbat Jafarov who had the following story:
Gurbat is an Internally Displaced Person (IDP) from the Armenian-occupied territory of Azerbaijan Gubadli. He started his business five years ago selling clothing, bags and other apparel items. The business has been growing and he is requesting a loan to increase his stock.
The minimum amount that you can loan is $25 and that is what I have decided to do for each of my loans as I begin.
At this point in time I am finding that the most difficult part of giving up to loan money is that there are so many people that deserve it that it is hard to pick. Basically I am just randomly looking through the listings and donating to the first ones that I come across.
I'm sure that over time I will refine the system a bit, but for now that is the way that I am choosing.
May 19th, 2007 at 02:13 pm 1179584037
May 20th, 2007 at 12:24 am 1179620699