The following is a post that I submitted to the Jubilee Time Capsule.
The genealogical community has always been a friendly and active one. Regardless of where perhaps you are in the Commonwealth, or even beyond, so many people have ancestral links back to either parts of the United Kingdom or a Country which has such links with the Commonwealth.
On 28th September 2011, a lady in Queensland Australia created a team called Genealogists for Families within the non profit organisation called Kiva (http://www.kiva.org/about). Building on the success of the conception of the team in 2011 the Genealogists for Families Team received an award for 'Best New Community Project'.
Now, 9 months later, the team consists of more than 170 people, across the globe, but predominately across the Commonwealth. The team have loaned, which is the principle of the Kiva system, more than $16,000 to across the globe, but of course part of the Commonwealth are very well represented too.
This is a fantastic achievement. One that I am proud to be a part of. This shows the value of family across the Commonwealth, it shows that in a world filled with war, poverty, uncertainty and fear that regular, working and retired people from all across the globe & Commonwealth care about others, who are in the main strangers, and come from a variety of Countries and different walks of life.
The basics of the system are this. Register on the Kiva site and go on, join the team! Read through the selection of those who need help and having made your selection make your $25 loan. The loan is repaid and you are then free to reloan your money or withdrawal it from the project the choice is yours. $25 is the cost of a Macdonalds for 3 people, yet $25 can do remarkable things, improving the lives of others.
Non Genealogists can join the team, which is open to family and friends of Genealogists. You can visit the team page http://www.kiva.org/team/genealogists and read about the project. You can read about the regular people that are supporting the project via the blog http://genfamilies.blogspot.com.au/
Genealogists for Families - We care about families (past, present and future)
Genealogists for Families - We care about families (past, present and future)
Great idea Julie. I hope it encourages lots of people to join us on GFF.
ReplyDeleteThanks Pauline! I hope do too.
DeleteWonderful work, Julie. Hopefully you will encourage more people to join our ranks, help others and benefit from the team's camaraderie.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jill.
DeleteWhat a fascinating concept! Thanks for telling us about it x.
ReplyDeleteIt is Lesley. It is a great project & the GFF team really embraces the whole family togetherness ethos. There was a chap yesterday who had 3 days left of his loan request & had not achieved 100%. Simply by a few posts & tweets he now has 71% raised and still 2 days to go. At the moment Kiva is doing the free trial loans which supports those in the project & raises its profile.
ReplyDeleteA shameless plug, but why not join the team & see how we support the project? See, I said it was a shameless plug!
....and a quick update, 100% raised. 23 of the 56 people who loaned the funds were from the GFF team!
DeleteJulie, how clever of you to mention the Genealogists for Families project in the Jubilee Time Capsule! You have been an active and supportive member of our group, and I appreciate that. I do hope that you can meet some of us in person when you come to Australia.
ReplyDeleteI do hope so Judy. I am looking forward to meeting some of the team and sad that geography will prevent me from meeting some others. As soon as I have our plans finalised I will drop you an email and we can plan from there. So looking forward to it!
DeleteOnce again you've inspired me to be involved. I will write up one or two stories about royalty, the Commonwealth,and the new country of Papua New Guinea. Once again without blogging I'd have known naught about this. Thanks!!
ReplyDeleteYour welcome Pauline. Look forward to reading your posts.
DeleteJust heard today that the post here, complete with links has been accepted into the Jubilee Time Capsule - - Great news!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations and thank you, Julie!
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