Archive for July, 2009
“Say Cheese…I mean, Whiskey!”
By: Nilima Achwal, KF8, Bolivia
While taking pictures throughout Bolivia of Kiva clients, colleagues, and friends, I’ve noticed a theme. Most people don’t smile. No matter if it’s a jolly loan officer who loves his job, the cleaning girl that always peers curiously over my shoulder at my laptop and brings me mate de coca, or good friends hanging out after work. The second I take out my camera, in fact, the second before I click the shutter, the grins vanish. Ironically (and maddeningly), the second the flash is out, the subject in question almost always smiles or laughs.
6 comments 31 July 2009
Glad Kiva has partner MFIs like Zene za Zene (International)
Although I have seen some of the obstacles of microfinance, I am encouraged by ZzZ’s determination to continue succeeding. Despite the problematic situations, ZzZ is outstanding in terms of its work with Kiva, and the Kiva borrowers I have met are all hardworking and earnest women. I hope that my Kiva Fellowship will help ZzZ (International) gain a bigger presence on Kiva.org and that they will post more loans in the future. You could show your support by joining the Lending Team “Friends of Women for Women International”!
Continue Reading 3 comments 31 July 2009
A Small Step Forward
Like most of Africa, Benin’s education system is riddled with problems. Its educational woes start at the primary level. The main language of instruction in Benin is French. Educational resources written in Beninese languages hardly exist. Therefore, children whose native language is Fon or Yoruba have to learn material while trying to understand a new language. This problem is particularly evident in the rural north of Benin. As a friend of mine said to me, it would help if more students started school in their native language and gradually transitioned to French. But this is a long-term goal.
Students must pass two national exams in order to graduate from high school; however, the pass rate of both exams is very low. The first is the BEPC, Brevet d’etudes du premier cycle, taken at age fourteen. Then students take the Baccalaureate, or Bac, at the end of high school. When you visit Benin’s national education website and scroll through Bac results, it is startling how few students pass. Because entry into the few national universities is guaranteed to students who pass the Bac, the exam is very difficult. Therefore, many students struggle repeatedly just to pass high school. Even smart, dedicated students have trouble moving to the next level. Many are simply unprepared to advance.
Unfortunately, things are far from ideal even for those who are lucky enough to pass the Bac and go on to university. Cotonou is the only major economic center in Benin and few jobs exist even for the brightest of the bright. It is no wonder that everyone wants to move to Europe or the United States. Imagine how frustrating it must be to graduate at the top of your class and have no opportunities to use your talents. Many are also frustrated by visa requirements and a lack of fluency in English.
And yet, despite the odds, education remains an important priority for people in Benin. I was sitting at a hotel lobby a few weeks ago, watching TV. The hotel manager came running into the room and asked if he could change the channel. The BEPC results were set to come out that day and they were to be announced on TV. Judging by his excitement, I imagine that he had a child or another close relative who had recently taken the exam. Soon enough, more people trickled into the room and we watched the results together. It was obviously a big day in Benin.
Education is the starting block for progress and success anywhere. It is how people get ahead in life. People in Benin, like anywhere, want to get an education and succeed. But without a well-established, functioning system, people have to look for any work they can find. That’s why so many people are selling the same goods along the side of the road; they do whatever they can to survive. This is where Alidé and other microfinance institutions can help. By offering loans, microfinance institutions are teaching people how to manage their money. I have witnessed many training sessions during which loan officers explained interest rates, repayments, and loan terms. This is important information to know. Also, the access to credit gives people the opportunity to innovate and be more successful. With the help of a loan or two, a vender might be able to sell a new product and to increase sales. It might give someone else more time to study for a test. It is a small step, but an important one. As well, how could microcredit be used to further expand educational opportunities? Could microcredit function as a source for student loans?
There is no simple answer to correcting large problems in education and economics. Benin, Africa, and the whole developing as a whole will all hopefully become more prosperous in the future, but it will likely take a long time. A lot of work needs to be done to address huge problems. If anything, the importance placed on education in Benin is a good sign for its future. In the meantime, we can continue to support the financial system, which is helping people to learn money management and to improve their standard of living. Many borrowers in Benin rely on Kiva lenders for funding and we have the unique opportunity to help provide assistance.
Andrew Whiteman is a Kiva Fellow (KF8), currently working at Alidé, a Kiva Field Partner, in Cotonou, Benin.
3 comments 31 July 2009
Obama-rama in Ghana!
Hotel Obama
By Nancy Tuller
KF8, Cape Coast, Ghana, Africa
I knew President Obama was going to visit Ghana even before I came here, and was excited to think that perhaps on some off-chance I might meet him. Ha! After completing my first placement as a Kiva Fellow in the regional capital of Kumasi, I arrived in the country’s capital, Accra, on July 8th, and Obama arrived the next day on July 9th. I went to several hotels and all were fully booked. My taxi driver suggested a new hotel called, (guess what!) Hotel Obama! Only in Africa! It was actually a very cool hotel owned by a Ghanaian family who had lived in New Jersey for some years, and had returned to start up this hotel. Each room was named for someone. There was, of course, the Barack Obama suite, the Michelle Obama room next door to it, and the Joe Biden room across from it. I stayed in the Coretta Scott King room that was right next to the Martin Luther King room. There was beautiful African art work on the walls and there was a good restaurant attached. And, I was definitely in good company! It rained hard that next day, and I didn’t even know Obama’s schedule, so I went about my business in the capital city of Accra, including buying my bus ticket for Cape Coast, where my second Kiva placement would begin the following Monday.
The next day I left for Cape Coast. (more…)
6 comments 30 July 2009
Microentrepreneurs and Maxipads
By Alison Carlman, KF8, Kenya
Consider yourself warned: this blog talks about maxipads. There. I said it. Now please keep reading.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the “Girl Effect” campaign. The “Girl Effect” is a about investing in what Africans call the “girl child” and how that can affect a country’s development. According to The Girl Effect, an extra year in primary school statistically boosts girls’ future wages by 10% to 20%, and every additional year a girl spends in secondary school lifts her income by 15% to 25%. And you better believe that the size of a country’s economy is, in no small part, determined by the educational attainment and skill sets of its girls. For Kenya alone, if the 1.6 million teenage girls who drop out of school each year instead finished their secondary education, their incremental earning power would lift Kenya’s GDP by $27 billion over their lifetimes. Not to MENTION the impact it would have on the health and well-being of future families and children of these girls-turned-women.
But it’s not that easy just to “stay in school.” The girls I work with in Kisumu at K-MET’s Safe Space have dropped out of school, many because they became mothers during their teen years.
A Safe Space Member Working to Start a Tailoring Business
I’ve talked a little with these girls, and have learned some other things about why it is so difficult to stay in school. I learned that something as simple as “sanitary towels” (or maxipads -there, I said it again-) can make the difference whether or not girls miss 4 days of school each month and get hopelessly behind in their studies. These products are too expensive to purchase every month, and the alternative is to use unsafe materials (like chopped up pieces of mattresses or old newspapers) which cause infections, leading to more absenteeism.
Look – I realize that you didn’t check the Kiva blog to read about sanitary products. But aren’t you at least slightly incensed by the fact that the lack of these simple supplies keep girls and women from attending school, attending public meetings, or even operating their own businesses for 4 days every month?!
15 comments 29 July 2009
When the Local Currency Falls, Microfinance Suffers
It has to be a devastating feeling to wake up one morning to find that 20% of your savings have vanished into thin air through no fault of your own. Unfortunately, that’s the reality that developing countries often have to deal with when their country’s financial systems are unable to keep the control over the value of their currency.
When I completed my Kiva Fellows placement in Tajikistan in early April, the local currency there was at around 3.80 Somoni to 1 USD. But something odd started to happen in the weeks to come. Somoni suddenly started to slide down and accelerated in May, until it hit its bottom on May 29th at 4.44 Somoni to 1 Dollar.
In other words, dollars suddenly became 17% more expensive compared to just 2 months earlier. Or 29% more expensive since the beginning of the year – just six months earlier.
Who’s Feeling the Impact?
3 comments 28 July 2009
What Happens When an MFI Grows Up?
Tamara Sanderson, KF8, Mongolia
Once upon a time, two NGOs named “the Golden Fund for Development” and “Gobi Start” came together to form their own commercial bank with a social mission. They decided to name themselves “the right bank,” with the hope that Mongolians could repay. Although all odds were against this new bank, it prospered at a time of economic uncertainty in Mongolia after the collapse of the Socialist system and overarching bankruptcy in the financial sector. Eight years later, this initiative has resulted in the largest microfinance bank in Mongolia and a role model for other MFIs (microfinance institutions) throughout the world.
When I first heard this story about XacBank, it seemed a bit like a fairy tale. Based on analysis from the MicroBanking Bulletin (MBB), it takes about 7 years, on average, for an MFI to become financially sustainable. Sustainable means that the MFI collects its loans and covers all its costs well enough to serve poor clients even after it does not get grants or soft loans from donors or government.
XacBank broke this norm. It was profitable from the very start.
Although this is great for XacBank, it logically leads to another question. If it is financially self-sufficient, why does it need Kiva? Shouldn’t the 0% interest capital go to other MFIs that need it more? (more…)
6 comments 28 July 2009
Thank you, TLM lenders!
Last week I was able to meet some Kiva clients while doing borrower verifications. Shanty, one of the Kiva Coordinators, and I decided to print out their Kiva profiles and show them what the world had seen.
Although they get an explanation of what Kiva is when they sign the client waiver, many TLM clients have no knowledge of the internet. To see a printed out profile with their pictures, along with some of the faces of people who had loaned to them, was very exciting for these clients!
Fret Passu’s Group and Oliftataf 44-B Group handled the printouts as if they were gold and swatted away the children’s hands when they tried to touch it. Members of Sesawi B1 Group and Sesawi A2 Group excitedly pointed each other out in the profile pictures. We left the profiles with them and I know these will be treasured items.
When Fret Passu (pictured below, on right with mustache) saw his profile he said, “Even though I am sitting here in this dirty shirt, people all over the world know who I am!”
Members of Fret Passu’s Group and Oliftataf 44-B Group
Members of Sesawi B1 Group and Sesawi A2 Group
Thank you to all of the generous Kiva lenders who helped these people acquire their cattle loans!
Cissy DeLuca is working with Tanaoba Lais Manekat Foundation (TLM) in West Timor, Indonesia. Feel free to join our rapidly growing lending team and follow us on twitter!
5 comments 27 July 2009
Six Months Later: 10 Lessons Learned About Life, Microfinance and the Universe
Going full circle. Ferris Wheel in Bosteri, Issyk-Kul Lake Region, Kyrgyzstan
It was exactly half a year ago, on January 23rd, that I packed all of my belongings in one 30-pound backpack and left New York City for a 7 month trip to Central Asia and India. I only had a slightest idea of what the trip would wind being like and what exactly I’d be doing during all that time. I just knew that it was something that I had to try for myself, even if I couldn’t quite find and explain the reasons to others.
Low and behold, it’s now six months later and and I’m in the midst of doing my 2nd Kiva placement in Kyrgyzstan (after doing doing a Kiva Fellowship in Tajikistan and then a another job assignment in India). So, I figured that it would be a good time to stop and reflect on the experience and the lessons learned. With just four weeks left before heading back to the good, old U.S. of A, you definitely wonder about what this meant for you.
10 Lessons Learned About Life, Microfinance and the Universe (in no particular order):
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On Patience: Things take time to work. Over the last 6 months, I started work in 3 different organizations (2 for Kiva and 1 was for an independent, non-Kiva placement but also in microfinance). The first few weeks in every place can feel slow and sometimes awkward, as you struggle to find your place within the organization and figure out what you can contribute. Patience really is a virtue. (more…)
7 comments 23 July 2009
I know I can. Be what I want to be.
By Suzy Marinkovich, KF8 Peru
When did I begin to learn about savings? I can’t say I’m any good at it, but at one point far and long ago, I know I learned about it.
I suppose it was simply modeled to me by my parents, dedicated savers and cautious spenders. For many of us, saving seems so natural a concept that it’s hard to climb outside of our nutshells to see the rest of the world’s reality. Banks are readily available to many of us, and they often shell out incentives for us to save with them – collecting interest, investing, and the like. It seems like everyone is telling us to save.
Yet, from interviews I’ve conducted here in Ayacucho, I’ve noticed the importance of saving is something many of our borrowers really come to value only after joining FINCA.
FINCA requires its borrowers to deposit into a savings, which they get at the end of their loan cycle. Loan Officers also lecture the borrowers on the importance and value of saving at their weekly meetings, and encourage them to voluntarily contribute additional savings through FINCA as well.
The last question on my journal interview questionnaire for Kiva borrowers is also my personal favorite, and I made it the last one because I look forward to the response so much I make myself wait until the end. (It’s like in college when I would allow myself to eat candy only after I finished my homework.) The question is: what do you like the most about borrowing from FINCA?
I love it because it’s the one question I almost always get a unique response from. And yet one of the most resounding responses is, “because they taught me how to save!” One Kiva borrower said, “They force me to save. At first I hated it. But now I understand it and I love it! I’m going to start construction on my home soon. The savings are my favorite part.” I definitely saw myself in her.
For these women, the loan itself is not their ‘favorite part’ about borrowing from FINCA. It’s learning about savings! As if I wasn’t addicted to Kiva enough, now I have another reason to be: it’s not just about borrowing for the present, it’s about teaching the women to save for their future. Our microfinance partners that stress saving—and most of them do—are passing a great test of sustainability.
But these days, it’s not only the women that learn how to save at FINCA Peru.
5 comments 22 July 2009
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