Mar 08, 2021

International Women's Day | Why We Support Kiva

We are owned and run by women here are Love Mae, and we believe strongly in being part of the solution by creating opportunity for women around the world. We do this by supporting KIVA, a charity that offers an array of global causes to engage with, distributes 100% of all donations to the field.

Mind the gap: Global (in)equality

When it comes to participating in the global economy, the gender gap for women is staggering. There’s urgent work to do and the gap is growing even wider during the pandemic.

Every cent makes it back to the cause you choose to support. KIVA has been given the Charity Navigator's highest award rating, and we love that you can choose to support a variety of causes relating to women, education, start-ups, environment and more, just about anywhere in the world. With donations from as little as $25, it makes it easy to donate and tailor your choice of cause the more you learn. We have supported these three amazing initiatives today:

Sosai Renewable Energies's story

80 million Nigerians have no access to electricity. In rural areas, 66% of the population are suffering from energy poverty. Desertification intensifies wind and sand storms which disrupts grid infrastructure and causes energy outages. This has repercussions for agriculture productivity, connectivity for workers in every sector, education, health, and livelihoods.

Sosai Renewable Energies is a women-led, locally-owned Nigerian social enterprise founded by Habiba Ali. Sosai provides affordable solar home systems, clean cookstoves, food dryers, and larger business solar systems, mini-grids, and water filters. Their products reach over 500,000 rural Nigerians. Products are distributed to last-mile areas by a sales force of women entrepreneurs, who demonstrate product value at gatherings of local communities.

To date, Sosai’s products have saved families approximately $750,000 by adopting the cost-saving technologies. They measure about 200,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions avoided in the last 2 years due to adoption of their products.

This loan of $100,000 will be used to reach more communities with solar products and employ more women sales agents. It is Sosai’s second loan through Kiva’s Social Enterprises program. View their previous loan here and this short video highlighting Habiba and Sosai as a Vital Voices Global Leadership Award Winner.

Mipho's story

Mipho is 42 years old and has started an organic chicken farm in her native northern Thailand. She is a member of the Thai tribe in Chiang Rai, Thailand, which is one of the several different ethnic groups who make their homes across the mountain ranges of Southern China, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Thailand.

For her entire life, she has grown vegetables on family land in the mountains near her home. However, because prices of her goods fluctuate, her income is very unpredictable and is rarely enough to support her family. Therefore, she decided to work with Hilltribe Organics to start raising organic eggs. This would be her 3 loan with Kiva.

She wants to purchase 850 egg-laying hens and feed for them to raise on her farmland. Selling the eggs will provide a continuous monthly income for her family and will allow them to clear the family's debt.

Amazonas Group's story

The Amazonas communal bank is in its third cycle. It is made up of 7 members and is led by Herly who is the president and is also a member of the board of directors along with the treasurer and secretary who appear in the photo. Due to the pandemic, only the three members were photographed to represent their team.

Herly is 25 years old and she is a young mother of 2 children of 9 and 4 years old. Some time ago she started activities in the cocoa, coffee and banana harvest. With this, she has been able to raise her children.

This time she requests a loan through Kiva to invest in the maintenance of her cocoa plot. She wants to clean to avoid pests and thus have a better harvest and provide her customers with quality products.

Herly considers herself an enterprising, hardworking woman with a willingness to pay her loan. She is separated from her partner and decided to get by alone with her children. Currently, she continues to save to invest in the purchase of fertilisers for her crops, that is why she works in other agricultural plots as a day labourer.