My first microloan

I have just made my first microloan through Kiva, an organization I read about a few weeks ago.

I chose to lend to two women, one who has a food stall business in Nigeria, and another who is setting up a hair salon in Kenya. I wanted to lend to women because studies show that assistance to women has a much greater effect on reducing poverty than assistance to men, and I wanted to lend in Africa because I will be going there soon and this way I feel a little more of a connection there (I wanted to lend to someone in Senegal, but Kiva doesn't seem to have anyone in Senegal who qualifies for a loan right now).

I'm pretty excited about this - it will be interesting to follow the growth of their businesses and repayment of their loans over the next year or so!