Author Archive
Nathan’s Office
Nathan at work visiting borrowers of Juhudi Kilimo
By Nila Uthayakumar, KF14 Uganda and KF15 Kenya
“It was my first day on the job,” Nathan says with a wide grin.
“I wore a coat and tie, I looked very smart! I was going to work for a bank, sit in a swiveling chair, and swing my legs!”
Nathan and I are standing on the side of a road. The occasional share-taxi barrels past us, but mostly we are surrounded by the hush of farmland that stretches as far as the eye can see. We’re in the Southern Rift Valley of Western Kenya. Nathan is neither sitting, nor swinging his legs. We cross the road. The mid-morning sun casts our shadows long across the hot asphalt. (more…)
Microlending Behind the Scenes: How MFIs Judge Credit Worthiness
By Nila Uthayakumar, KF14, Uganda,
With the help of several other Fellows in the field
Borrowers of an MCDT solidarity group meet under the shade of a tree in Kampala, Uganda.
I’ve met all kinds of borrowers. From age 16 to 76; from orphans to a former beauty queen; from potato sellers to auto parts saleswomen to motorcycle transportation tycoons. I’ve met them in urban slums, in villages, in homes, on porches, in churches, in community centers, and outside in grassy fields. I’ve listened to their stories, I’ve photographed and filmed them, I’ve played with their children, and I’ve been welcomed into their homes. Two months into my Kiva fellowship, and I am more motivated and inspired than ever. My name is Nila and I live and work in Kampala, Uganda.
What I have understood from these borrowers is that poverty takes many shapes and forms. Poverty can mean desperation and destitution, and it can also mean having to make impossible choices between paying medical bills or school fees. It can mean not having enough food to eat today, or not having a secure enough future to be able to retire. The microloans I have seen in action place into the hands of borrowers the power to shape their own lives. The recipients of these loans are among the most dignified people I have ever met, and when given the chance, these individuals make tremendous improvements in their lives. (more…)
My Heart has Taken Root
The Source of the Nile in Jinja, Uganda
Nila Uthayakumar, KF14, Uganda
My Rough Guide to Kenya has been open face down on my desk for the past few days. My time in Uganda has been incredible. I have seen and experienced so much in such a short period. Like my life has been on fast forward. This country captured me instantly. Drew me in. And held me close. Whispering. This land is unlike any other. (more…)
Video Blog: The Kiva Story
By Nila Uthayakumar, KF 14, Uganda
Nila is a Kiva Fellow living in Kampala, Uganda. She looks forward to working with several Kiva partner MFIs in Uganda and Kenya over the next few months.
Video Blog: The Story of Lini Nanyonga
By Nila Uthayakumar, KF 14, Uganda
Nila has just arrived in Kampala, Uganda after having spent six months in Zanzibar, Tanzania last year. She considers East Africa home now, and looks forward to working with several Kiva partner microfinance institutions throughout the next few months in Uganda and Kenya.
In Defense of “High” MFI Interest Rates: Part II
By Nila Uthayakumar, KF 14, Uganda
On the one-year anniversary of Eva Wu’s blog post entitled In Defense of “High” MFI Interest Rates, I was inspired to write a post on this exact topic. The date of this post is a coincidence, as I was actually inspired by the concerns of a group of friends I met with last week. They inundated me with questions: Why is it that microfinance institutions (MFIs) all over the world charge interest rates between 30 to 60% or even higher in many cases? Are they all predatory organizations, profiting from the hard earned money of the world’s working poor? How are these astronomical interest rates even remotely justifiable?
As they asked me these questions, I found that I was repeating myself in answering them. It is expensive to run an MFI. There are bad roads and very high transportation costs, it is time consuming to make visits to borrowers, borrowers often do not have collateral and loans are given to solidarity groups whose members guarantee each other’s loans, and borrower default is also a problem. These are but a handful of the issues that make microlending very different from traditional banking. Still, as I explained, I was not convinced myself. I wanted to see some numbers.
The View from the Ground
Sam the loan officer counting loan repayments
By Nila Uthayakumar, KF 14, Uganda
Tuesday morning. It was just my second day at Micro Credit for Development and Transformation (MCDT), a Kiva partner microfinance bank based in Kampala, Uganda. I sat at the helm of a grouping of desks in an airy room within an office building perched at the very tip-top of a hill in Kampala. What a view. Of the city, but also of the four loan officers preparing to go into the field and meet with their borrowers. I looked out of the window, and then back at the people in the room. How did I get here again?
I needed to remind myself, lest I forgot. It had been the most intense month and a half of my life. In the beginning of December I was still living in Zanzibar, Tanzania. More specifically, I was painfully packing away six months into my backpack and getting ready to visit the States. I would be home for a month and a half, (although home for me is relative at this point), and I had an expanding to-do list to address. Most importantly, I was to attend Kiva Fellows training in San Francisco in January. I, along with a group of nineteen others, was going to be taught how to be Kiva’s eyes and ears on the ground. What exactly that meant, I could not have possibly known until I got to “the ground.”
