Can you help Kiva grow in the public school system?

[Guest]

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[lissteach]

I am a teacher in Edison, New Jersey who has encouraged 7th graders to raise money for Kiva in their community.  We conducted a school raffle, held a teacher/student faculty game (400 attendees), solicited local businesses and religious institutions, and got press coverage from the local newspaper as well as a featured article in the Star Ledger (regional newspaper).  All of this was done with the help of a few teachers and the energy of my students.  We were able to raise almost $2500 with minimal planning.  Most of the money that we raised was in the form of a donation, so we should start next year with some seed money.  I have already received persmission from the administration to turn Kiva into a sponsored club and my professional improvement plan is to bring in bigger businesses to the loan cycle.  Are there any teachers out there who have some ideas or would like to link up in some way?

[RichardF]

Hi, lissteach!  I believe I tracked down your school's page at the Group Lenders topic.  One thing I noticed about many of the groups, including schools, is they didn't necessarily offer any easy way to contact them.  At least having a town and a name might make contacting some of the school groups a little easier.  Also, congrats on your very successful fundraiser! 

[Spartan]

Congrats! It is socially responsible progressive thinking and personal commitment like yours that makes public schooling a truly worthwhile endeavor as well as a noble and righteous cause for all concerned.

[lissteach]

Thanks for the feedback.  I did post an e-mail address on our lender page to help build connections.

[Laurie]

I just registered with Kiva Friends, primarily because of my interest in this subject.

My niece will be a senior in high school next year, and I have recently heard about the "senior project" that is one of the requirements of her final year of school.  Apparently the project is to be charitable or community work. 

The senior project came to my attention when I was chatting with my sister about Kiva.  My niece is intersted in international relations, and I had decided to give her a gift certificate to Kiva to broaden her perspective. As I explained the concept to my sister to enlist her aid in followup,  the light went off in her head - the perfect senior project.

Now I can't stop thinking about it - as my sister pointed out, I am old enough to have a senior project myself.     

If my niece chooses to make some aspect of Kiva participation her project next year, I'll pass along any suggestions she has, and will be keeping my eyes on the forum for ideas to pass back to her - unless she gets motivated to log on to the Kiva Friends forum herself, of course.   I'm thrilled to have this forum available for the exchange of ideas.

-- Laurie

[RichardF]

I sent a message to some college students where I work about Seed Donations for New Group Lenders at Kiva.  The first part of the idea is to jump start a new lender group at Kiva by bank rolling one of their first loans.  The second part is even better, IMHO.  Get members of the first group to recruit other groups to become members.  Some of the same people can be in both groups, but they don't have to be.  The original seed starter could offer to seed X number of groups in the network, or the first group could be encouraged to "pay it forward," with or without more incentives from the original seed. 

The Group Lenders list I mentioned above has more student groups than any other kind.  Surely, we can find some ways to hook them up to each other and watch this thing snowball even more.

[Spartan]

There is a an international students union organization I used to work with called Association of College Unions International (ACUI) at the post secondary level. If you have the time Richard I would contact it because it has direct active communications with chartered student organizations such as student governments, activity boards, and campus papers as well as the administrative interfaces for member universities and can be a major player in mobilizing students globally in a very short amount of time. Moreover many student groups have big budgets (due to student fees) and often invest resources into charity work and fund activities for campus groups. I'm thinking maybe they help establish Kiva clubs on member campuses.  After all service learning is a core tenant of the philosophy of ACUI.   This of course could lead to cooperative education program interaction for students and a plethora of other creative endeavors I can think of.

[RichardF]

Thanks, Spartan.  One of my objectives here is to jump start the students to initiate the networking on Kiva.  If the group I contacted is interested, I'll share this with them.  The next time they meet will be some time this fall.

[Spartan]

You might want to contact the organization directly prior to the meeting so you can work something out over the summer for the fall meeting. That way you can do a presentation and other educational things. If you have a Director of Student Life on your campus that person is likely to be the admin contact and your best resource for support. If not then the Dean of Student Services would be default point of contact.

Another avenue you may try is if your State has a state wide student government system is to contact that organization as well.

[RichardF]

What I plan on doing is different than what you are suggesting.  I'll start where I'm ready to begin and then see where it goes from there.  Of course, anyone else is welcome to follow up on your suggestion.