Have you been to India? As a back packer or a luxury traveller? However you choose to travel it is difficult to ignore the millions of people who are small business owners. These are the people who sell you handicrafts and jewellery, colourful clothes to take back home as souvenirs. They are also the small farmers dependent on the monsoons and other seasonal vagaries of India. The monthly earning of a small business owner is often less than your daily wages in the UK. Make a social investment.

Why should non-Indian nationals contribute to Rang De?

Rang De is a non-profit peer-peer lending and crowd funding organisation in India, which allows individuals to socially invest and donate to the borrowers, who are associated with Rang De, through its field partners at low interest rates to the borrowers (4.5-10% p.a.).

How is Rang De different from other organisations?

All individual social investment done through Rang De  goes to the borrower and the social investor gets updates on the repayments as well. Once the money is repaid, the social investor can choose to withdraw the money or reinvest that to other borrowers. As of now, this is allowed only for Indian citizens.

 

 Rang De UK

According to Reserve Bank of India rules, foreign nationals can get involved with a limited set of borrowers, the ones whose field partners are allowed to take foreign donations under FCRA.

 

Rang De UK is being set up as a charity to allow foreign nationals to be able to donate money to a larger set of borrowers and also get tax relief on the donations as well (the tax relief will only be applicable to UK residents). To register as a UK Charity Rang De UK needs to raise £5000 by 19 September 2015. This can be done with your help by crowd funding pledges.

The amount raised from donations will act as revolving credit and continue making difference to the lives of the borrowers. Once the borrower repays the money, the money will be given to another set of borrower(s) hence continuing the chain of impact.

Written by Amrita Dasgupta - Visit my blog for more food and travel stories
I love to travel, discover new things, experience new cultures and then I get back home and experiment with the new food and recipes I discovered on my travels. My blog is about all those life experiences. If you’ve enjoyed this post, keep in touch with Drifting Traveller on Twitter and Facebook or by adding my blog to your RSS feed. Follow my blog with Bloglovin or Networked Blogs! If you really like reading the Drifting Traveller why not share it with people you know who'd like to read it too.