Kiva - March 2014

March is quickly drawing to to a close and that means keeping up my New Year's resolution to support a micro-loan on Kiva.  Over the last two months I've discovered I'm typically drawn to many loans that not only support the lender (obviously) but have a positive environmental impact and this month's loan follows a similar approach.

Matay (Tanzania)

A loan of $1,875 helps Matay to purchase biodigesters for resale.

Matay lives in Gongali Village, Arusha, Tanzania. His main activities are agriculture and animal husbandry. Matay is among several people in Gongali who are really excited with the TAHUDE Foundation's biodigester initiative to provide renewable energy to the rural Tanzanian community.

This loan will help Matay to realize his dream. The biodigester will help Matay to cut down his family expenditure on energy for cooking and lighting. It will also be a blessing to the whole community because a few more trees will NOT be cut for cooking as a result of Matay's biodigester. Moreover, his family health will also improve after they stop cooking with poisonous trees that produce harmful smoke. They will enormously benefit because the biodigester also produces low-cost lighting at night.

At the time of this blog entry, Matay's loan has been 30% supported and has $1300 USD funds to raise to completion.

If you would like to read the full details of Matay's story and perhaps even add your support, you can read his Kiva loan request here.

I also have an exciting update on Sreyleang's loan from January 2014 - she's started the process of paying back her loan (a month earlier than expected, even)!  I did go into a state of giddiness when I saw her first repayment (and incidentally my first received repayment) drop into my Kiva portfolio.  That money has already been put back into good use supporting Matay.  How cool is that?

Please join me on Kiva!