Bilingual? Kiva needs volunteer translators.

One of the reasons I struggle to get over to this Blogger text box as much as I like is a joyous one. Kiva is going gangbusters.

If you're new, I talk about Kiva alot here. It's an online organization that lets anybody lend as little as $25 to an entrepreneur in the developing world. And yep, you get paid back.

An interesting article in the New York Times a few weeks ago focused on the other side of the Kiva picture - how local agencies, people on the ground, a fiercely dedicated staff and hundreds of volunteers, including 250 translators scattered around the world, get a microentrepreneur's photo, story and loan request to the web, where you can help fund it for as little as $25.

Kiva's looking for volunteer translators to join that team. Their current needs include a long list of languages, Spanish among them. Volunteering for Kiva is one of the most rewarding things I do. Every business description I translate is the brief story of someone's life and his hard work to get ahead under his own steam. I always leave my Kiva sessions flying.

I translate 6 or 8 short texts a week through an easy web interface on the Kiva site. And when I'm travelling or overloaded with work, "I can't help this week" is always a fair answer to a translation request.

Check out Kiva's translator needs, oh multilingual blog crowd. You'll be making a tangible difference to a great organization and a lot of folks who are more than willing to work hard to improve their family's quality of life.