Born and raised in Mumbai, India, Janvi is a passionate researcher who believes in making the world a better place, one small step at a time. Unafraid to follow her passion, Janvi honed her research skills while completing a doctoral degree from University of Deusto in Bilbao, Spain from the Department of International and Intercultural Studies. She has been involved in fieldwork, undertaking rigorous research assignments in conflict-ridden and underdeveloped rural areas of India during her Master’s education in Disaster Management from Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Recently, she worked as a short-term consultant on a large USAID project in Afghanistan, helping a consulting group to develop a risk assessment tool to improve their education programs. She has worked with numerous non-profit organizations in India, Spain and most recently, interned with Worldreader in San Francisco for the past year helping their teams in Ghana, Spain and India. She is excited to be a part of Kiva, and hopes that this experience will allow her to apply her skill set and open her mind to diversity, social entrepreneurship and rural development in Peru and Bolivia. Her hope is that experiencing empathy for other cultures, working with communities and taking action will help her make a difference in the world

Fellows Blog Posts by Janvi Gandhi

Dec 3, 2016 PE Peru

As a Kiva Fellow, each field visit to meet Kiva’s borrowers feels like an exciting, new experience! I compare it to reading a new book each time; and instead of starting at the beginning, you get to read the last page first. Today, I had the pleasure of visiting one of Kiva’s borrowers “Señora Carmen” at her farm in the idyllic Urquillos village in the Sacred Valley to see how her Kiva story turned out.
Outside Carmen's "White House": Carmen (extreme left), Diana (extreme right)
We arrived at... Continue Reading >>


Nov 16, 2016 PE Peru

Discovering the impact areas of Kiva's Field Partners (FP) is the most exciting part of my job as a Kiva fellow! Kiva’s FP Asociación Arariwa in Cusco - one of their oldest partners in the region - facilitates group loans. Their clients are spread out across the different communities in the Southern region of Peru.  We started early today to visit and verify a Kiva borrower in the town of Urcos - Zona Sur or South Zone of Cusco - closer to the city of Puno. The FP’s Kiva Coordinators pointed to an interesting pattern of livelihoods followed in...
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Oct 20, 2016 BO Bolivia

On waking up this morning, I was surprised to find a message from my co-worker, sent at 5.30 am, that read, “Janvi – there’s a transport strike today, please be careful. Don’t speak with strangers on the street. Honestly, it would be better if you stay home and decide not to come into work.”  
"Protest of Chauffeurs in La Paz" The subtitle of this article explains that the strike has been called on by the Federation of Chauffeurs in La Paz and the residents are extremely unhappy with this "unjust" development...
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Oct 13, 2016 BO Bolivia

Meet Javier Alberto Viscarra
Meet Javier Alberto Viscarra. A 49-year old entrepreneur, he recycles hospital waste to develop solutions for unwanted plastic. His product is simple, a machine that breaks down “low density polyethylene” – substance that plastic bottles contain – and recycles them as granules for reuse in the market. He developed his first machine in 2010 when he started his workshop with limited capital and his wife told him - "think of this as your biggest fight, of... Continue Reading >>


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