Inkovations: Kiva Entepreneurs

Do you remember Amadeo De Jesús, the 66 year old beekeeper from El Salvador?

Back in February 2016 we helped to lend him $1,100 via Kiva.org, the site we use to make our monthly ‘loans that change lives’, in order to purchase more equipment and boxes to house his hives. (If you missed it, you can read his story

Just like many of our friends, colleagues and clients we won’t be sending Christmas cards from Inkspiller this year. Instead, we’re making a special donation directly to Kiva.org, the organisation we use to make our monthly ‘loans than change lives.’

In case you’ve missed our posts about them (where have you been?) Kiva’s mission is...

As you will probably have noticed by now (unless you’re new to our blog, in which case hello there, it’s lovely to meet you!) we use Kiva.org to make monthly ‘loans that change lives’ to entrepreneurs without access to traditional banking systems.

However, this month’s loan is a little bit special, as we are making it to take part in...

The City of Oakland, California has long been home to a thriving African-American community, which has shaped black identity in the USA for decades.

However, whilst it remains one of the most ethnically diverse major cities in the country, that historically renowned African-American population has decreased by around 10% (over 10,000)...

The slashing of art lessons in schools, brutal cuts to arts funding, the number of creatives asked to work ‘for exposure’ or ‘for the love’ … our society certainly seems to question whether art really matters.

I began pondering the value of art as we made this month’s “loan that changes lives” to Tigran, an Armenian looking for a loan to...

As readers in the UK will probably be aware, we’re having something of a heatwave at the moment (or at least, that was the case at the time of writing….we may well all be back in our cardigans by the end of the week).

The time-honoured British reaction to sunshine seems to be to use as much water as humanly possible. Sprinklers on the...

Kiva.org, the site we use to make ‘loans that change lives’, has recently had a bit of an update- it looks great, is even easier to use and has new header sections for each borrower type, providing would-be lenders with even more compelling reasons to get involved.

Why do we mention this? Well, it’s not just to pat Kiva on the back for...

In light of the UK’s referendum decision to leave the EU, there has been a sickening rise in racist attacks and intimidation towards both Europeans living in the UK and non-white Britons.

Therefore, it seemed particularly important to us that our Kiva loan for June showed solidarity with those who have been victimised, and those who are...

To the South-West of La Paz, Bolivia’s administrative capital, lies the area of Cruce Villa Adela, the crossroads beyond which the remote villages of the arid Altiplano spread out.

Whilst Bolivia’s economy has taken an upturn from a starting point of economic and political instability in recent years, it remains South America’s poorest...

Have you heard of Moringa?

It’s a ‘supergreen’ - one of the most nutrient-dense plants in the world, with dried leaves outstripping both Kale and Spinach in the level of vitamins, protein, calcium and fibre they contain. As well as the vitamin packed leaves, traditional medicine has used almost every part of Moringa, known as ‘the...