Kiva had record traffic over the holidays. As I was home for the holidays, I volunteered for several shifts. As quickly as loans were translated they were moved to the live side of things. Millions of dollars came through to the budding entrepreneurs in developing nations. Volunteering to translate is interesting – I’ve translated loans about stores, artisans, agriculture, hardware and car repair shops. If you are a language teacher, consider volunteering to translate. It’s a great way to keep your language skills up to date. And there is a terrific support community for the translators, too!

Tonight I translated 16 microloans at Kiva - whew! I think one of the funnest things about translating at Kiva is the variety of vocabulary. Tonight I translated about embroidery, radiators, grocery stores, and chickens.

It could be interesting for a world language class to adopt an entrepreneur…

Ever hear of Kiva? Kiva lets you select entrepreneurs in developing nations and contribute a loan to that person through financial partner organizations. Basically, it works like this:

Pretty cool! Creating that connection by personalizing the loans. I admit, I have few loans out – and it is very addicting to want to help others. And you can see the other people who have also contributed loans. Loan recipients submit 1-2 journals over the course of the loan, enabling the lenders to receive news of the endeavor.

In the spirit of helping, I noticed that Kiva needs volunteers to translate microloan descriptions. So I am now officially a Kiva Volunteer. Every week, on Fridays, I translate loan descriptions from Spanish to English. Pretty neat thing going on here, connecting every day people from around the world to give a helping hand to our fellow human beings!