I want to invest
in others. Being able to give money to those that need it is great.
There is only one obstacle that is stopping me from this goal - I'm not
rich. My luck! Not having enough money stops me from investing
in others!
Kiva
(kiva.org) allows me to accomplish this goal. It gives me the
opportunity to be a partial investor in a business or businesses. In
their own words,
"Kiva lets you connect with and
loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By
choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can "sponsor a business" and help
the world's working poor make great strides towards economic
independence. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months),
you can receive email journal updates from the business you've
sponsored. As loans are repaid, you get your loan money back."
Let's look at a make believe example.
Carla
lives in Brazil. She makes blankets and want to start a business
selling them. She needs $500 to buy a space and buy shelving for her
store.
Kiva allows you to loan Carla money in
increments of $25.00 You can loan her $25, $50, $100, and so on. Others
can also loan her money.
Carla pays her loan back to Kiva who
in return pays you. There is no interest. This is not a traditional
investment where you make money on the loan.
I think this is a
great idea. However, action talks and bullshit walks! It is easy for me
to write about this organization, but why not put my money where my
mouth is! I made two fifty dollar loans.
I made my first loan
to an electrician in Paraguay. I chose this business because I wanted
my first loan to go to a person from either Central or South America; I
teach many students from Central and South America. I've become close
to the people from these continents. Here's Martin's story.
"Martin
is 45 years old, and married to Bernarda Roja. The couple have three
children: the oldest is 20 years old and is a university student, their
other son is 16 and is studying at middle-school. Their youngest
daughter is 11 and is still in primary school.
In
his youth he worked in the Yacyreta hydro-electric plant, where he was
able to accumulate capital through saving his money through much
personal sacrifice and then establish his own workshop for car
electrics. Now he has 20 years experience in the business. His wife
cares for a store that operates from their own home which also
generates extra income for the family.
One
part of the loan will be used to buy spare parts related to his
business, which can be obtained for a better price if bought in bulk,
and the other part of the loan will be used to purchase merchandise for
the grocery-store. In this way, they will increase the family’s income
and consequently its members quality of life."
My second fifty dollar loan went to a lady in Nigeria. Healthcare is a vital issue. Here is Mrs. Comfort Eseneh story.
"Mrs.
Comfort Eseneh is a 58 year old woman, who has a chemist shop
(pharmacy) for the care of people in her community. She is married with
seven (7) children, and lives in Benin City, Nigeria. She hopes to get
the loan amount of $400 for business improvement, i.e., buying more
drugs for sale. She has been in this business for 2 years."
Kiva has an excellent repayment record. They do thier due diligence. Here's some more info from their site.
This
can be a great school project and a way to teach students about giving.
Teachers can incorporate geography, social studies, and other topics
related to the country where the business person lives.
You
make your payment with a credit card or through your PayPal account. At
the checkout, Kiva will ask if you want to make a 10% donation based on
your loan to them. Kiva takes no money from the loan. All of my $100 is
split between Martin and Mrs. Comfort Eseneh. I donated 10% to Kiva
($10.00 based on my loan).
Want to volunteer and teach English as a Second Language? I started Classrooms Without Walls
to provide ESL lessons to anyone who wants to learn English free of
charge. It doesn’t matter if they are from Asia, South America, the
United States, etc. In fact, English can be their first language. Maybe
the student just needs some extra practice.
I volunteer and teach some students in China and Colombia. I want to
bring this project to the next level and offer free lessons to more
students. I need your help. I need volunteers to teach. All you need is
a computer and a free Skype account. My lessons are 60 mins., but you and the student(s) determine how long each lesson is.
There are no commitments. Teach 30 mins. a week or longer. Share whatever time you can.
Sincerely,
Alan
My job requires me to write. I write computer documentation, some
marketing materials, business-related documents, and correspond with
business people throughout Asia. The most important rule for writing is
to know your audience! In real estate, the three most important things
are location, location, and location. For writing, it is audience,
audience, and audience! It seems obvious but many writers forget this
rule.
When I write computer documentation, my first question is who is my
audience. Am I writing for computer novices? Programmers? Engineers?
The person whose boss said they have to use this program and just want
to learn it as quickly as possible?
If I'm writing for programmers or engineers I can use technical terms,
acronyms, and assume that my readers have a specific level of technical
knowledge. If the person is a novice, the opposite is true. I use
analogies and scenarios when I write for beginners.
Get to the point right away. I hate when people use the build up
approach, the climax and drama at the end. The problem - you may be the
only person that reads the end. For example, if you are raising money
for a charity, tell your readers in the first paragraph that you want
them to give money. The rest of your document convinces the reader to
give you money.
Be careful when you write email. You never know who will read it. You
send an email to a friend and they send it to another friend. That
friend sends it to someone else and before you know it, you don't know
who's reading your email. When I write an email, I never write anything
that I don't want a stranger to see. Writing email is like writing a
message on a postcard.
Be careful with humor. This is especially true when you are writing to
a person from another country. Humor is cultural. What is funny in one
country is not always funny in another country.
Don't make stereotypical or political assumptions. You may have a blog
that discusses charity or a blog that discusses the War in Iraq. Don't
believe the political stereotype. You never know who is reading your
blog. No need to offend people that like your writing.
Always respect your readers. People often ask me what is the hardest aspect of writing? My answer - getting people to read it.
I had fun teaching my last class and my students had fun learning. The class focused on reading and pronouncing dollars and cents amounts. For example, my students have problems pronouncing $123.19 and $123.90. Nineteen and ninety sound similar, especially with an accent. I wrote a list of dollar amounts on the board that highlighted similar sounds, $56.40 and $56.14, $1,745.17 and $1,745.70, etc. I purchased some BIC pens at the local convenience store and gave each student a pen after they read the list.
My students loved the challenge. Some read through the list in about a minute and others made it into a pronunciation aerobics session, sweating their way through a five minute tongue-twisting session.
My students are adult immigrants. Most do not have an education that extends past the ninth grade. Some had problems reading dollar amounts in the thousands, and most had problems reading dollar amounts in the tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands.
This difficulty taught me a lesson. Never take the least bit of education for granted.
Teaching online is
a very popular concept. I use it to teach English as a Second Language.
Skype or any Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) program is essential.
Most instant messenging programs (YahooIM, MSN Messenger, etc.) offer
this functionality.
There are other Internet technologies that are also useful. User groups or message forums (Google Groups
for example) are popular. The teacher begins a “written discussion”
and the students contribute. These groups are similar to blogs where
the blog author starts a conversation and readers share their comments
and thoughts.
Blogs and wikis are great for year-long projects. The class or
teacher chooses a topic, for example, the weather. Students can write
about how the weather affects their community, weather in other
countries, learn about hurricanes, and so on. They can also take
pictures of interesting weather-related or weather-affected events.
You may want your students to create a blog about their community.
They can attend town or city government meetings and other events. Its
a great way to get them involved in the community.
Blogs are great for showing how students’ writing improves over
time. They also teach writers about discipline. Having to write 3 or 4
interesting entries a week is a great skill, especially for students
that want careers in journalism.
I love wikis. A wiki (like Wikipedia)
allows students to collaborate. They can edit existing material or
create new material. This tool allows students to create “their own
textbooks.” For example, an English class can write their own “grammar
book” or a history class can write a “book” about the American
Revolution, based on the material they learn from class and student
assignments.
Technology provides many opportunities for education. Like any tool,
book or website, the learning value depends on how well the tool is
used.
It is interesting. I happened to write about the elderly and found this interesting article about a 95-year old blogger.
Click here to read her blog.
One of the best aspects of writing a blog is the feedback that readers share
with me. I want to share with you a website that one of my readers shared with
me - www.goamericaforseniorcitizens.org. This site provides some interesting
facts.
It also shows how one can use the Internet to inform others about a
social issue or political cause. Check out the voting records page. It
shows that some politicians need to learn that family values are a verb
and not a campaign slogan.
This past
Saturday, I took my dad and a cousin to another cousin’s Bat Mitzvah.
My dad is 84 and I believe that my cousin is about 89. As we drove
through the different towns and cities on the way to the temple, my dad
and cousin pointed out the different stores and buildings that defined
these communities when they were younger. I enjoyed this history; it
was interesting learning how the communities changed.
After the service, I took my cousin to visit his wife who is in a
nursing home. Well, it’s called a nursing home, but to me it seemed
like a warehouse of death. Many of the elderly were in wheelchairs in
the corridors just killing time. Some were asleep, some were talking,
some were just watching, and unfortunately, some were in their own
worlds.
When my dad was recovering from a broken hip a few months ago, he
was in a different nursing home for about a month. This home also had
corridors decorated with patients just killing time, sleeping, and some
unfortunately in their own worlds.
I spoke with one of the nurses. She told me that my father was
lucky; he had visitors, my brother and I. Many of the patients never
had visitors except on the holidays. She said that many of the patients
were there to die. The nursing home was a warehouse for death.
I can understand that you cannot care for an elderly relative, or
that an elderly relative needs 24 hour assisted care. That is natural.
However, why would you just leave them there and never visit them?
When I see elderly people, I see “living histories.” These people
lived in a world that no longer exists. They had their love affairs,
arguments, and the other challenges that are part of life. They had
their goals, careers, successes, and disappointments.
Teaching and writing is all that I know. I got this idea that I call
“Their Stories.” I wonder if it would be helpful to these patients if
they had the opportunity to share their stories. They could write or
tell them and I could enter them into a blog. I and others could
volunteer an hour or two on a weekend and show some of the patients how
to use a computer so they could write their own stories into the blog.
It would be easy to get the local papers to publish a press release
about this project. This would give others the opportunity to read the
blog and share their thoughts and memories. Maybe some old friends
would reunite! Sharing memories will give these patients a better
quality of life. I plan to begin by writing my dad’s stories.
I’d appreciate your thoughts on this project. Have others done this?
Are their organizations that volunteer their services for similar
projects?
We don’t need warehouses of death. We need living spaces where those
near the end of their lives can live their final years to the best of
their abilities.
Students learn at
different levels. It doesn’t matter if you are a child or an adult.
Some students in one school year may gain two grades of Math skills
while they may need two years to earn one year of English skills.
I think it makes more sense to allow students to learn at their own
pace. Certainly, they need to meet specific requirements to graduate
but does it really matter if a student earns a high school degree in 12
years or 13 years, or for that matter in 10 or 11 years? In fact, I
think when a student is “held back” it probably does more harm than
good.
Government gives us much rhetoric. Standardized tests will fix
everything! These tests are analogous to telling the football coach and
team that you need to win eight of your ten games. It doesn’t matter if
your players have the skills to compete in their league, or if they
have a practice field, coaching staff or football equipment. The
measurement of success is to win at least eight of ten games.
Everybody, teachers, parents, and students want to succeed. Let’s build systems that lead to success.
I read an interesting article in
Fast Company, a business magazine. It discussed corporate involvement in public schools. It featured a new high school in West Philadelphia, Philadelphia's School of the Future.
Click here to read the complete article.
This is an interesting and certainly a controversial concept. Corporations argue that students don't have the skills they need to work in today's businesses. However, public education should never be a production line for just job training. It is important that students learn critical thinking, the skills necessary to deal with the many unknown situations that will be part of their lives, and an appreciation of the arts, literature, civics, some philosophy, and the other subjects that many don't think are important.
Business and technical skills are also important. There is more to word processing than just entering text, more to spreadsheets than just adding columns of text, and so on. Students definitely need technical skills to compete and some basic business skills are also important.
Is it a good idea to let Microsoft into the public education system? The skills they teach are important. However, will these students transfer their Microsoft Office skills to the free, open source
OpenOffice, or will they become slaves to Microsoft technology. My experience in the technical world is that many people become accustomed to the software that they learned and do not switch to other products.
Click here to view a list of companies that provide resources to public schools.
Corporations in public schools are an interesting concept that is not going to fade. Many believe that this is one way to improve public education. What are your thoughts?
This semester my main responsibility is to teach both my ESL students and my online students the four types of writing, narrative, expository, descriptive, and persuasive. I placed some examples on the blog that my students use.
Click here to continue.
I received an email today from
Gala University to teach ESL online. I'm not familiar with them, but I'm in the process of learning about them. I thought I'd share the link with you. It shows how online education is becoming more popular and illustrates one method of a payment structure.
Of course, one needs to keep their guard up. While there are many online education resources available, you want to make sure they are legit. If you are interested in a degree, make sure the teaching entity is certified.
Online education has its benefits and fills a need. It allows students to learn at their own pace and in the privacy of their own home. You can learn from anywhere in the world.
A few years ago, I was taking an online course from Brown University. The instructor asked why we chose to learn online. One student provided a novel answer - he was in the traveling cast of Phantom of the Opera. Online courses were the only way that he could continue his education.
The quote that begins Chapter 3, pg 27, illustrates the importance of education and the poverty that exists in many parts of the world.
"Tell us, if there were one thing we could do for your village, what would it be?"
"With all respect, Sahib, you have little to teach us in strength and toughness. And we don't envy your restless spirits. Perhaps we are happier than you? But we would like our children to go to school. Of all the things you have, learning is the one we most desire for our children."
- Conversation between Sir Edmond Hillary and Urkien Sherpa from Schoolhouse in the Clouds
I am also amazed at the kindness of Balti people as they open their home and meager food to Greg as he recovers from getting lost on K2.
Chapter 5's title is a good slogan for me to remember when I create my non-profit,
580 Letters, One Check.
What is a penny woth? Most people, myself included leave them on counters in stores for others that need them. However, pg 52 describes how pennies can be very valuable.
"A month after returning to Berkeley, Mortenson got a letter from his mother. She explained that her students had spontaneously launched a Pennies for Pakistan drive. Filling two forty-gallon trash cans, they collected 62,345 pennies. When he deposited the check his mother sent along for $623.45. Mortenson felt his luck was finally changing. 'Children had taken the first step toward building the school,' Mortenson says. 'And they did it with something that's basically worthless in our society - pennies. But overseas, pennies can move mountains.'"
I'm guessing that
Pennies for Pakistan was the basis for
Pennies for Peace.
I put together a website for my
Classrooms Without Walls project. This is my "using Skype to teach the world English as a Second Language" project. If you have a minute, I'd appreciate if you take a look at it.
In a previous post I discussed how I was using Skype to teach people in other countries English as a Second Language. Although I believe I'll create a 501c non-profit to grow this concept, I was curious to see if people would pay for this service. I have a bit of an entrepreneurial streak in me.
I initially set the price at $5.00 for a 30 min. lesson. However, since I'm targeting Central and South America plus the Dominican Republic, I realized that $5 U.S. dollars is a lot of money in these foreign currencies. I lowered the price to $1.00 for a 30 min. lesson. I'll see if this is the "magic number." Maybe it's like
iTunes - 99 cents a song and I'll have ESL classes at a $1.00 per lesson.