On the vanity of words

By Peter Tashjian, KF11 Armenia

This is the title of an essay of one of my favorite thinkers, Michel De Montaigne. Per the author of the book “Michel De Montaigne, The complete Essays”, “Montaigne, despite his own mastery of language, despised words and admired deeds.” In the spirit of this essay, I’m going to keep this blog short and to the point.

What is microfinance? Per Wikipedia.org, “Microfinance is the provision of financial services to low-income clients, including consumers and the self-employed, who traditionally lack access to banking and related services”.

Kiva adds an interesting dimension to this. They’ve created a platform that empowers you and I to visit Kiva.org and lend $25 or more to an entrepreneur whom speaks to us. One can search the site to find borrowers in a specific geographical region, review their profile, see their pictures, look into their eyes and lend. Once the money is repaid, you can then lend to another and so it continues.

The way one can do this is as easy as 123 (once you register on the site), which is quite simple https://www.kiva.org/register.

1. Visit http://www.kiva.org/
2. Click on “Lend”
3. Choose an entrepreneur and lend

My engagement as a Kiva Fellow is in Armenia and here are some Armenian borrowers.

Coming back to Montaigne’s essay “On the Vanity of words”, we realize simply talking about something does not provide the satisfaction and impact as doing it. We all want to matter and have purpose. This is a solid start. One click at a time, you can lend and improve the wellbeing of another person. Here’s your first click, http://www.kiva.org/.

By the way do you think the world cares about you?