…and we just crossed by making our 8th loan to Khongorzul Bayarmagnai from Mongolia who is a 23 year old entrepreneur who will be using funds to increase the amount of clothing she can import for her clothing business.
And on that note, we’re going to be organising the next KakBank session. Possibly for sometime in December 2011. If you’re interested in attending, please drop me an email to cookiebank@ridz.sg and introduce yourself.
A digital magazine, Singularity, founded by one of our CookieBank attendees just did a piece on microfinance, us and Kiva this month. Do check it out!
We had our first session of CookieBank back in October 2010 and put in a total of SGD$90( we had 9 attendees). With that, we made a total of 3 loans on Kiva. I’m glad to report that since then, $56 has been repaid and we’ve gone on to re-loan that.
A few days ago we just made loans to two more groups. At the time of writing this, the loans are still raising funds so if you’re keen, you could go and help them out.
On another note, Casey Wilson of Wokai.org will also be speaking at NUS on Monday. So if you’re interested in listening to her microfinance experience in China, you can attend her session. More details over here.
From the 20th September, Kiva is running a pilot project on their site – education loans to students from 3 countries – Lebanon, Paraguay & Bolivia.
This is definitely an interesting development… We’ve all read how education plays a part in development of societies…
Kiva.org Extends Its Global Microlending Marketplace to Education by Adding Student Microloans
Microfinance Leader Aims to Demonstrate That Students in Developing Nations Will Repay Loans if Given The Opportunity, Helping Open The Door For Higher Education Around The World
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – September 20, 2010 – Kiva.org, the world’s first personal micro-lending website, has announced a pilot of Student Microloans on Kiva.org. Beginning today on Kiva.org, anyone can lend as little as $25 to students in three countries around the world. Founded as a means to combine the impact of microfinance with the utility of technology, Kiva is in a unique position to help lenders make a personal difference – easily, quickly and effectively – first with small business microloans and now with student microloans.
The pilot was born as a natural extension of Kiva’s mission to connect people, through lending, to alleviate poverty. Kiva Student Microloans give recipients the opportunity to gain new knowledge and skills through higher education or vocational training. As a result, these individuals will be better positioned to find jobs, support their families and grow their communities — and ultimately make a real difference in the relief of global poverty.
“In developing countries, access to funding for education doesn’t exist like it does in the United States,” said Premal Shah, president of Kiva.org. “Without being given the opportunity, students don’t have the chance to demonstrate fiscal responsibility. We believe the internet community is in a unique position to share the risk of student lending in the developing world and if these students repay their loans — as we believe they will — it could be the very impetus needed to make education accessible for everyone around the world.”
Cookie Bank(also called KakBank in Swedish) is a project that was started in Sweden by Peter Kelly in 2007. It’s basically a fun gathering that i’m adopting to the frequent potlucks I’ve been holding the past several years. Here’s what happens:-
Every 2 or 3 months, we’ll have a session where everyone comes together, contributes SGD$10 into a hat and brings cookies, cakes, ice-cream, all the sweetest things you can find and we meet to chill out, have fun and talk about a little about who we want to help through microloans. The contributions are then transferred to Kiva.org where I(together with anyone else who’s interested) will pick projects to loan to. Once the loans are repaid into the Kiva account, the money will be re-loaned to more people. The same amount of money goes a really long way!
If at anytime the money is withdrawn, it will be donated to a traditional charity like the Red Cross or something.
Much of the time gathered might be spent either catching up(which is what I think will happen at the start) but we would also introduce the concept to the newcomers and talk about the sort of projects we might want to fund and discuss any issues we may have over certain types of loans.
I believe that microloans are a more sustainable way of helping people(See why here). With such high repayment rates, it’s even safer than the commercial banks and because we’re helping build businesses, it helps make longer term change.
This site will be used to share news about the loans we’ve made, upcoming sessions and the fun we’re having 
Do drop a note if you’re interested in attending a session or better yet, start a Kakbank in your community!
And so I’ve set the date to be the 30th of October between 4pm and 7pm. Now all I need is a nice place to run this
And so i’m thinking that the 1st Cookie Bank Session should be kept small so that I can figure what are the issues around running such a thing. At the end of the day, i’d like for this to be fun for everyone.
I’ll do up a proper introduction to Cookie Bank@Ridz.sg soon. In the meantime, this is what inspired its formation.