Archive for June, 2010
Kiva in the Kingdom?
Andy Raming, Kiva Fellow, The Land of Smiles (Thailand)
Developing Country Knowledge –En español también
By Eva Nemirovsky, KF11 Kyrgyzstan
Maybe you want to improve the world.
This is why you read Muhammad Yunus’ books and the End of Poverty, by Jeffrey Sachs. You have a perfect project in mind that could help alleviate poverty in Tanzania. The only issue is that you have never been there.
The many faces of the Tajik celebration
By Rosalind Piggot, KF10, Tajikistan
At 7 am the other morning, I was deafened by rhythmic Tajik dance tunes. After squirming around on my floor mattress to try to wake up fully, I opened the window. On the street 4 stories below, one young man was dressed in a suit holding flowers. Thirty odd neighbors were standing around watching, dancing as the songs blasted out.
zang-e akhir
The extended family of celebrations
This celebration, zang-e akhir, is just the latest in a number of celebrations I have been introduced to. (more…)
Revelations by the director of Komak, Kiva field partner in Azerbaijan
By Yelena Shuster, K11, Azerbaijan
I’d like to tell you a little bit about Komak, the MFI (microfinance institution), where I am serving my Kiva fellowship. Komak, which means “help” in Azerbaijani, has offices in four regions: Baku, Absheron, Khachmas and Fizuli. The central office, where I have spent most of my time is located in Baku, the capital city. Here I work with five other people: Aydin, the director; Emin, information technology; Aliabbas, accounting; Elnur, bookkeeping; and Afitab, the Kiva coordinator. With over 1,600 current active members, 80% of whom are IDPs (internally displaced people), Komak is a small but energetic MFI.
I asked Aydin, who’s been the director of Komak since its inception in 1999 to tell me about its beginnings and goals.
Aydin grew up in Fizuli and studied technology and food conservation in Odessa, Ukraine. He was living with his family in Fizuli, working as the manager of technology at the local wine factory (Fizuli afterall is one of most fertile regions in the Caucus, producing a variety of distinctive grapes from which delicious wine can be made) when the geopolitical conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh broke out with Armenia in 1992. As Armenian forces occupied his home town, Aydin and his family fled to the neighboring city of Horadiz, leaving all their belonging behind. Soon after their resettlement, Armenians occupied Horadiz as well and Aydin’s family moved again. His wife and five children went to Baku, where they stayed with relatives, while Aydin tried to forge out a living through agriculture in Ahmedbeyei for the next 5 years.
Continue Reading 10 June 2010 at 23:13 Lena Shuster 8 comments
Do the poor have dreams?/ A quoi rêvent les pauvres?
By Aurélie Dagneaux, KF11, Ecuador
One of my favorite questions when interviewing borrowers for new loans and journals (update on a loan), is: “What are your dreams and hopes for the future?”
Tough question, but on this one I always get an answer.
They all have dreams. YOU can help fulfill them.
Ma question préférée, lorsque j’interviewe des clients pour des nouveaux prêts ou pour des suivis de crédits existants, est : « Quels sont vos rêves pour le futur ? »
Question difficile, mais j’obtiens toujours une réponse.
lls ont tous des rêves. Et VOUS pouvez aider à les réaliser.
Continue Reading 10 June 2010 at 11:01 thefrenchlily 4 comments
A Mexican waiver
By Sally Bolton, KF11 Mexico
“I’m so happy that you can come with me to Tlalnepantla today,” said Leti, the loan officer I was working with last week. “There’s a group there who don’t want to enter into Kiva for their second loan cycle. Maybe you can convince them that they should.”
Convince them? I wasn’t sure that was my role. Leti explained that a few of the group members didn’t want to appear on the Kiva website given the drug violence and fragile security situation in Mexico. They were concerned that appearing on Kiva might put them at risk.
On one hand I was really happy to know that the group had been fully informed about what it means to receive a Kiva loan. All borrowers must sign a Kiva Client Waiver, indicating that they are aware that their photo and story will be published on the Kiva website. But a signed form doesn’t necessarily mean that the borrower fully understands how Kiva works. Most borrowers will happily sign every form that is put in front of them so they can receive their loan. They often don’t read the forms closely, or perhaps they can’t read them. So it is important that the loan officer explains to them exactly what it means to ‘enter into Kiva’.
Continue Reading 10 June 2010 at 04:16 Sally Bolton 4 comments
What we can learn from La Paz’s zebras: A guide for future Kiva fellows
How the characteristics possessed by La Paz’s zebras can serve as a guide for future Kiva fellows.
Continue Reading 9 June 2010 at 10:06 alexisguild 6 comments
Why Do We Lend?
After immersing myself in all things Kiva, I was prepared to answer a lot of questions, but none as basic as this one.
Divided in Two
Let’s hear it for everyone who works hard: supporting themselves, supporting their families, and trying to balance their professional and personal lives!
We all know that this balance is nearly impossible to achieve, but the formula becomes especially complicated when you run your own business.
Continue Reading 9 June 2010 at 06:39 Kati Mayfield 1 comment
Umuganda
Austin Harris, KF11 Rwanda
In Rwanda, there is a mandatory community service day each month called Umuganda, meaning “contribution”. All able bodied persons over the age of 18 are expected to participate in volunteer community work. Similar to microfinance, Umuganda helps to further economic development and makes the country less dependent on donor contributions. However, it does come at the cost of unpaid hours of labor for its people.
Continue Reading 9 June 2010 at 00:51 austinharris 3 comments
7 reasons to fall in love with not-perfect Indonesia/ 7 Gründe sich in das un-perfekte Indonesien zu verlieben
Negativity, discontentment, racism, catastrophy-focusing, no interest in strangers. All this I know very well from home in Vienna but in Indonesia you can find right the opposite in the national spirit.
The Top 7 reasons to fall in love with Indonesia (for me it was love at first sight) deserve attention, because Indonesia as biggest Muslim populated country which had to face terrorist acts in past years isn’t used to good publicity… /
Die Top 7 Gründe sich in Indonesien zu verlieben (für mich war es Liebe auf den ersten Blick) verdienen Aufmerksamkeit, denn Indonesien als größtes Muslimisch bevölkertes Land mit terroristischen Anschlägen in der nahen Vergangenheit steht selten im besten Rampenlicht…
Continue Reading 8 June 2010 at 22:51 Anna Antoni 10 comments
Leaving behind Oscar Wao for real wondrous lives
By Magdalena Malinowska, KF11, Dominican Republic
After successfully (read: finally!) completing the first year of a PhD program a few weeks ago, I am pleased to (again: finally!) find myself in the role of a Kiva Fellow. With much joy I exchanged the ice-cold confines of the library for the warm embrace of the Caribbean climate in the birth-place of merengue and several all-star baseball players: the Dominican Republic. And it is with great excitement that I am leaving behind the pages of Junot Diaz’s comical rendition of the Dominican culture and embarking on the challenge of discovering the lives of real inhabitants of this island, through micro-finance. From Oscar Wao to real wondrous lives, from Hispanic Literature to Hispaniola, here I come!
Continue Reading 8 June 2010 at 18:21 Magdalena Malinowska 6 comments
Introducing HOFOKAM!
By Drew Loizeaux, KF11, Uganda
I’m pleased to introduce HOFOKAM to the Kiva community. HOFOKAM is based out of Fort Portal, Uganda and maintains four branch offices that serve over 15,000 clients. HOFOKAM focuses most of its efforts on serving rural clients in the western part of the country.
Hofokam's Headquarters
Originally three different organizations, HOFOKAM was formed in 2003 by the merging of separate projects of the Catholic Dioceses from Fort Portal, Hoima and Kaseese. In addition, HOFOKAM receives funding and support through a partnership with Catholic Relief Services (CRS). Though HOFOKAM has many loan products its two main offerings are village bank and solidarity group loans. In addition to these loan products, HOFOKAM has also created several specific products to meet the needs of their clients such as agriculture loans, school fee loans and solar loans.
Andrew and Helen uploading borrower profiles to Kiva
Though I’ve only been here a week, I have been overwhelmed by the staff’s dedication, not only to HOFOKAM mission, but (more…)
The Challenges of Kiva
By James Allman-Gulino, KF11 Uganda
A discussion of some of the more challenging aspects for microfinance institutions (MFIs) in working with Kiva. Do lenders really know the “cost of Kiva” to MFIs?
Continue Reading 7 June 2010 at 00:01 James Allman-Gulino 12 comments
Summer Arrives in Mongolia: An Update on the Dzud Crisis
On Tuesday evening the atmosphere in Ulaanbaatar felt festive. It was Women and Children’s Day, offices had been closed all day and the weather had been sunny and unusually warm, reaching a high of 30 degrees Celsius. Even at 10pm, the streets were full of people chatting and strolling about.
It seemed like everyone was in a good mood, but I knew that many Mongolians, particularly those outside of the capital city, were likely not feeling very carefree. I’d just arrived back in the city after using the holiday weekend to travel to the countryside and see some of the spectacular scenery for which Mongolia is renowned. The vast steppes took my breath away. So did valleys full of decaying animal carcasses.
Continue Reading 6 June 2010 at 04:51 Kevin Henderson 7 comments
Buddha’s birthday!
By Cheney Wells, KF11, Sri Lanka
Last week was Vesak in Sri Lanka, an important holiday celebrating the birth, enlightenment, and death of Gautama Buddha—the supreme Buddha in many Buddhist traditions, including the Sinhalese Buddhism practiced here. The streets of Colombo were a blur of lights, people, and street food sure to spin your stomach like the electrical toranas and lanterns strung across the city. Approximately 69% of Sri Lankans are Buddhist, but there are also sizeable populations of Muslims, Christians and Hindus. Despite being a Buddhist religious celebration, Vesak in Sri Lanka appears to be enjoyed by people of all faiths.
In addition to this special Vesak holiday, there are 28 “poya” holidays throughout the year (occurring every full moon), which makes the repayment schedule here a difficult task to administer. Since loan collections aren’t made on poya days, the repayment schedule uploaded to Kiva has to capture this, skipping any weeks where collections won’t be made.
Sri Lankan Kiva borrowers could start a lantern business!
Part of the work of a Kiva Fellow is to set up an easily executable system for such processes as the repayment schedule, so that these tasks can be passed along to the staff of the MFIs that Kiva partners. In a sense, a Kiva Fellow works to make his or herself obsolete at the MFI—a wry term that has been coined amongst Kiva Fellows.
While I’m still here, however, I’ll make sure to keep you posted on all the developments from the island!
Portrait of a Boda Boda Driver
By Jeremy Gordon, KF11, Kenya
“People like us can’t get a loan. You have to be a member of a group with an influential person in it—we don’t know anyone like that.”
- Rama
The second day I passed him on my way to work, a man on a bright red and chrome boda boda (motorbike) befriended me. Rama is not a Kiva entrepreneur, and though he has been in this business for just over a year and a half, he rents his bike daily. He’ll spend the full retail price of a new motorbike every year in rental fees.
Before I left Mombasa, I asked Rama if I could take him to lunch, and ask him a few questions about his business. Over fries and cola, Rama and a fellow boda boda driver told me—in quite a bit of detail—about the financials of their work and lives. I’ve summarized most of what I learned in a balance sheet below, but if you’re interested in the specifics, please read on.
Never judge a country by its capital
Four weeks ago, I arrived in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, to start my second Kiva fellowship. I had spent the previous three months in Thiès, Senegal. The poverty patterns which I encountered in Senegal were not apparent in Bishkek. “Poverty in post-Soviet Union countries is not easily understood”, Eva Nemirovsky, the other Kiva Fellow who currently works in Bishkek, wrote in her recent blog post. Indeed. There seemed to be so many amenities here in Bishkek of which I would not have dared to dream of in Senegal! Four example, our apartment had a cooking stove instead of a fireplace, hot water, a functioning toilet, internet access and much more. In the streets of Bishkek there were cars which have driven only a fraction of the distances their rundown counterparts in Africa have. In short: My new environment seemed to have much more economic wealth than Senegal.
Continue Reading 4 June 2010 at 10:45 Samuel Trauffer 3 comments
Sugar Daddy Syndrome
Yesterday I spent about 12 hours on hot, crowded and bumpy buses in Dar Es Salaam. At least half of that time was spent idling in traffic jams, an inevitable experience whenever one travels to the far-flung corners of this sprawling city. I was trying to reach a couple of Tujijenge Tanzania clients and interview them as part of Kiva’s borrower verification process. I found one of the two clients I was hoping to meet, so the day was partially successful. By the time I got home it was close to 9pm, and after cleaning up and a quick meal (rice and beans in coconut sauce – delightful!), I was ready to relax. Allowing myself a short reprieve from noisy, dusty Dar, a movie was in order. Figuring a British film set in 1960s London should do the trick, I settled on the film An Education; however, as the story of a schoolgirl’s doomed relationship with an older man unfolded, I couldn’t help but recognize that the movie holds significant parallels with modern Tanzania.
Casual Fridays in Sierra Leone
By Aaron Kaye, Kiva Fellow, Sierra Leone
In some workplaces in the west, “Casual Fridays” are a way for office workers to dress down a bit from more formal dress codes. In Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, office workers have their own version of alternative dress once a week: African Fridays.
Cloth samples in Freetown
Transparency, transparency – also for borrowers?
In the long process of providing the information needed for receiving a loan through Kiva, transparency is of high priority but usually we talk about transparency for the lender. What about the borrower? Do they all know they are on the internet with a lot of personal information?
Continue Reading 2 June 2010 at 07:09 Anna Antoni 15 comments
Natural Disasters in Developing Countries – Tropical Storm Agatha
By Matt Raimondi, KF11, Honduras
Tropical Storm Agatha is the first tropical storm of the 2010 Hurricane season and while relatively weak, it is a disturbing reminder of how catastrophic even the weak storms can be for a developing country.
