Archive for November 8th, 2009
What a Loan Smells Like:
By Brian Kelly, KF9, Armenia
Not very good, at least in some of these Armenian villages I’ve been dropping in on lately. Have you smelled a chicken coop, or a sty filled with 20 pigs lately? It’s tough to carry a conversation in there. Visiting borrowers, at least in Armenian villages is quite the sensory overload. You will smell more than you hoped to, probably taste something you never expected to, and perhaps hear a story that will inspire you to start your own apricot grove.
Haaaayyyy. This will feed the animals throughout the winter, looks tasty
Kiva does an interesting thing. It helps put stories to the often boringly academic discipline of microfinance. Without the stories, Kiva would struggle to fund loans as quickly as it does. They help to strike a chord inside of us that increases willingness to lend or donate because of a connection felt on a human level. But you probably know all of that already, (or have read some of the chatter) and this spiel sounds all good and nice, but what does a loan really LOOK like. What does it feel like, taste like up close? How is access to credit really affecting the borrower? Well that question is one of the unique opportunities that Kiva Fellows get to ask and hopefully attempt to answer.
7 comments 8 November 2009
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