Global Update
A Kiva client in Guatemala weaves a huipil, or traditional dress garment – David Gorgani, Guatemala
This week’s update from the field covers a number of Fellows’ experiences as they work on adapting their MFIs’ innovative products to Kiva lenders, as they continue to develop Kiva’s newest and most innovative initiatives, and as they continue to visit borrowers – in this case borrowers whose loans they themselves financed! ...
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Guatemala
Kiva is expanding. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Kiva has been expanding constantly, both from the perspective of size and the perspective of product diversity, since it was established in 2005. Still, Kiva’s expansion in the past year has been lightening fast – I went to Fellows Training in January and I already sometimes feel behind the times. In the past year Kiva has expanded into the fields of educational loans, loans for water systems, green energy loans, and many more, not to mention the huge development that is Kiva Zip. But...
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Bolivia
Compiled by Alexis Ditkowsky, KF14, South Africa
Kiva Fellows love to learn about the intersection of food and business (Colombia pictured)
Let’s take a moment to vicariously consume baked goods in Colombia, coffee in Nicaragua, tomatoes in Ukraine, and a traditional meal in Nepal. Once you’re sated, you can read about the dismal state of trash collection in Guatemala, the lives of borrowers in Bolivia, what “mobile” savings really means...
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Compiled by Alexis Ditkowsky, KF14, South Africa
Many Fellows get around in fanciful local taxis (Indonesia pictured)
While it may have been a slower “official” news week than usual, I can assure you that the Fellows are keeping busy. One Fellow spent hours searching fruitlessly for borrowers in the jungle, another has been suffering from serious gastrointestinal issues (aren’t you glad he didn’t post about that?), and the rest of us have...
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Armenia
Compiled by Alexis Ditkowsky, KF14, South Africa
This week, take a trip to the field with Kiva Fellows (Mexico pictured)
For many Fellows, this week was about getting back to basics: the borrowers. In between fun facts about Kiva Fellowships, doing database detective work, and reflecting on the internal dynamics of Kiva’s partner microfinance institutions, Fellows found themselves in the field again and again, much to their delight and often to the delight of...
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Cambodia
By David McNeill (Sierra Leone) and Adam Cohn (Rwanda), with lots of help from the 14th class of Kiva Fellows
It turns out that one thing Kiva Fellows seem to have in common is a love for data. With that, Kiva Fellows David and Adam polled the current fellows in the field on the costs of various necessities and niceties in their current placements. The numbers, which we humbly title the Kiva Fellows Index, give some good insight into the conditions in the far-flung places we now live and work.
Far from home
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Guatemala
by Gustavo Visalli, KF14
A loan officer (center) meets with her clients
One key challenge to spreading microcredit in rural Guatemalan communities is actually finding entrepreneurs who are looking for a loan. In the rural highlands borrowers are not exactly surfing Google in their search for a way to expand their businesses. This makes monthly promotions crucial to finding new clients and keeping the Microfinance Institution (MFI) afloat. (It has also proved...
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Ghana
Compiled by Alexis Ditkowsky, KF14, South Africa
Last week, Kiva Fellows took you to places you may not have known existed (West Timor, Indonesia, pictured)
The Fellows will be covering International Women’s Day later this week but let’s take a moment to acknowledge its lesser-known cousin in Kyrgyzstan, “Man’s Day”. And while you’re appreciating culture and history in far-off places, take a trip to Peru and West Timor through photos,...
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Finished Collecting. Terminando de Cobrar.
One of my local friends came to me one day… “Mr. Montano I need to talk to you”. Later that day he told me he had to send money to his mother and had other expenses but payday which was still a few days away. We agreed on the terms, half with the current month’s pay and the other half with the following month’s pay; both at the end of the...
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Benin
Compiled by Alexis Ditkowsky, KF14, South Africa
Kiva's microfinance partners often provide services beyond finance, including housing (pictured above in Colombia), education, energy, agriculture, hospitality, business, women's rights, community, and culture.
Another week, another incredible range of dispatches from around the world. Several Fellows told their stories with video and pictures while others took time to reflect on the state of microfinance as a global...
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