Global Update
Muskan and Hussein, ready to ride out to Ol Jabet
It’s once again time for an update from our Fellows in KF-18. This week we have three posts from four fellows, all of whom are busy learning from and making a difference in their respective assignments. From looking for potential Kiva Zip borrowers in Kenya, to crossing a wide swatch of the South Punjab region in order to visit clients, these fellows will do what it takes to get the job done. And best of all, they are...
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Kenya
Milk & Fur Trader
Kenya’s got milk alright, and it’s a good thing, because just like good ol’ USA and Starbucks, I’m not sure what people here would do without their twice daily milk tea! Milk is big business; an integral part of Kenya’s expanding agricultural sector.
I just returned from Eldoret and the Kerio Valley and while there, I shot video footage for a new cooling plant loan product at my MFI, Juhudi Kilimo, who specializes in...
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Luan Nio and Olivia Hanrahan-Soar | KF18 | Nicaragua and Zambia
Kiva works hard to facilitate a connection between lenders and borrowers, through photographs, video interviews, and email updates from the borrowers themselves. Nothing compares, though, to the experience of being able to meet that borrower in person and see how your funds and the funds of others have had a tangible impact on his or her life.
Two Kiva fellows recently got the extraordinary opportunity to visit a borrower they had personally lent money to.
Luan from...
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I lived the life of a Kiva Zip borrower for a day as I rafted down the Nile in Uganda. It all started last weekend when the brave expats of Nairobi and Kampala decided to meet in Jinja. Jinja is a quaint city in Uganda serving the best Rolex, and is also the place where the Nile originates. With every natural wonder of the world comes some adventure – a full day Grade 5 rafting trip at the Source.
As a first-timer to extreme action sports in the water, I decided to tune in to every emotion – the anticipation of a class 5 rapid, the heightened fear every...
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Sierra Leone
Micaela Browning | KF17/18 | Sierra Leone
This post has a long-ish preamble before I get down to the real moral. Bear with me for just a little bit.
Let’s face it: If you are a foreigner in rural Sierra Leone during the rainy season, you will invariably find yourself engaged in a game of what my friend Ryan once referred to as Tropical Disease Roulette. While you may be unsure whether the bullet contains typhoid, malaria, or the alphabet soup of the hepatitises, you can be absolutely certain that – probably sooner rather than later – you are going to come...
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Diana Biggs | KF 18 | Burkina Faso
As mentioned in my previous posts, the Field Partner I’m working with, Entrepreneurs du Monde (EdM), is not a microfinance institution in itself – however, the use of microfinance is key to its mission, as it allows EdM to distribute their socially focused products in a way which can become financially sustainable.
The focus of Kiva’s partnership is EdM’s cookstove project, newly named “Nafa Naana” which can be understood both in Moré and Dioula – the two local languages most spoken in Burkina Faso – roughly translating to...
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By Olivia Hanrahan-Soar | KF18 | Zambia and South Africa
Borrower Annes with her baby Ebby in Chirundu, Zambia
Right now, I’m in the middle of a Zambian road trip. I’m working with one of Kiva’s newest non-traditional partners, Mobile Transactions Zambia (MTZ): a business which provides funds to entrepreneurs who want to own mobile money kiosks all over Zambia. This is Kiva’s first foray into mobile money, and it’s proving to be...
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By Patrick Seeton | KF18 | Kenya
I’ve been in Nairobi for just over two weeks (and more importantly three weekends!) and what has struck me most, beyond the friendliness of the people and the ever-present dust and diesel fumes, is the social scene and its social enterprise scenesters.
Kenya has undergone a transformation in recent years – the removal of long time president Daniel Moi in 2002 and subsequent democratic election of current president Mwai Kibaki was the start in a chain of events that has led to a resurgence in Kenya’s standing in the region...
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By Muskan Chopra | KF18 | Kenya
During our week of training in San Francisco, we were warned about the ‘trough of disillusionment’, where all will not be smooth in the field. Whether we were going to Kenya, Cambodia, Armenia or Peru, we will wake up to tough days where hot water decides to take a holiday or mosquitos find a way through the bed nets.
I often thought to myself – shouldn’t we instead be worrying about our borrowers’ ‘trough of disillusionment’? What’s a day of cold water baths and mosquito bites when thousands of people in the...
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Uganda
Julie Kriegshaber | KF 18 | Uganda
Ahh, Kampala. So charming, so dusty, so chaotic.
Due to a bit of poor planning on my part, I had about 32 hours between landing in Kampala and starting my Fellowship, so my first week here was a bit of a blur. Somewhere within the disorder of my first days, I met two Ugandans with inspiring stories that stuck out to me, and I want to share their stories here.
Walter
