Leveling the Playing Field
Microlending meets education to drive the great equalizer
One of the biggest regrets I’ve had from my adolescence was the lack of gratitude toward what set me up for success: my education. My parents were gracious to assist in financing my college tuition at Carnegie Mellon, however my full tuition wasn’t without the help of a few loans, as well as grants from former alumni.
The alumni who granted financial aid to students like me did it asking for nothing in return. It was their way of giving back to the school that gave them the roads to achieve their goals. As a token of thanks for their contributions, the school would arrange an annual thank you note afternoon where all students who received this aid would gather to thank their benefactors.
Being a snot-nosed 18 year old, I decided that it would be more important to play a game of beer caps than to show up and write these notes. A decade later, I can’t help but look back at myself and shake my head.
If it wasn’t for the generosity and selflessness of a few individuals who passed on tens of thousands of dollars to fund my education, I would not have been exposed to the skills which have enabled me to understand how to properly diagnose a problem, translate it into segments to solve and ultimately deliver solutions for those problems.
When the opportunity to engage with the Kiva community recently came up, it felt like it aligned perfectly with the tools with which my education equipped me.
Taking a large problem such as a lack of access to capital across the globe, breaking it into manageable tranches of liquidity and passing it to people of the world who otherwise would not have access to it is part of the brilliance of Kiva.
“Some things are destined to be — it just takes us a couple of tries to get there.”
When my more-thoughtful-than-me friend Jamie came to me with a proposition to help him with an idea he was kicking around, I immediately knew that I wanted to be a part of it.
When I learned that he would pass along $100 of his $1,000 birthday bonus to get each of his friends to invest in Kiva partners, I knew where to look. Assistance with education was something that I hadn’t gotten right over a decade ago, and when I read Jamie sharing the above quote about second chances, I knew I was ready to give it another try.
Education is the great equalizer. The Internet has empowered us with knowledge such that someone who knows how to navigate a QWERTY board is just as powerful in Peru, Kenya and Indonesia as much as they can be in the United States. We are fortunate to have benefactors in our American education system, but I am thrilled to be able to empower students around the world to reach their potential.
Jamie’s Kiva, Kismet, Karma program has inspired me to take his kindness and apply it to David, Taslim, Astrid and Andrew to give them the tools to work toward achieving their dreams. As they work hard, I hope to help them establish the credit they need to enable their entrepreneurial success post schooling.
These funds may be returned, they may not. Whatever is returned via Kiva will certainly continue to be reinvested into the education of Kiva partners from around the world.
It still frustrates me to think that I could have been so thankless when offered education from strangers those years ago. As a donor to pass the opportunity, I would never expect thanks from these students. I only hope they gain an education fortunate enough to meet great people in their professional lives who will help them achieve their goals and give back to the programs that helped them achieve.
To the selfless donors who helped me power through my education: I’m sorry that I never thanked you properly. My hope is that by beginning to pay it forward, I can start to give back what you have given me.
