Check this out! Kiva is now offering student loans to students in Bolivia, Paraguay, and Lebanon. I believe this is truly the right direction to eliminate information poverty and the digital divide.
This is a natural expansion of our mission to help alleviate poverty through lending, and it’s just the first step. In the coming months, we’ll be expanding beyond the current three countries and into markets where student lending doesn’t even exist.
The “How Kiva Works” page states that microfinance institutions actually disburse the loans as soon as they are needed, even before the stories of people are uploaded onto the webpage for the public to see and decide who they want to loan their money to. Interesting, did not know that. Basically, the public is reimbursing the microfinance institutions.
So, how does the application/screening process work? They have to choose stories that will appeal to the public, but what if some are not chosen? Do the microfinance institutions simply lose money?
For instance, could someone like you or me apply? (not that I want to..)