Author Archive
getting there
By Shereef Zaki, KF9, Perú
Cultural issues surrounding privacy can be one of Kiva’s biggest challenges regarding implementation in the field. Not everyone wants their photo publicized and many hold suspicions when it comes time to sign a waiver. But I think the biggest challenge for Kiva is far more prosaic. The act of getting to a borrower can be an ordeal in and of itself, and things just got more ‘adventurous’ at my MFI.
EDPYME Alternativa has created a new loan product – called Capital Semilla or Seed Capital – destined specifically for clients who will become Kiva borrowers. Loans of $300 or less at a low interest rate are now offered to rural entrepreneurs. Finding them for the interview generally involves a unique combination of collective vans, collective taxis, mototaxis and walking aimlessly through fields – for hours.
And the journeys take us through landscapes that are beautiful whether through unforgivingly desolate desert or knee high cornfields with palm and locust trees spotting the hazy windless horizons.
For your viewing pleasure I have chronicled one day’s worth of transportation that Manuel (the Kiva Assistant) and I embarked on in order to find just 4 borrowers.
Photos after the jump… (more…)
this is not aisle 3
By Shereef Zaki, KF9, Perú
One of my first posts was titled ‘recession proof’’ in which I described the resilience of micro-businesses and the integrity of micro-lending. This time around, I want to detail a theme I had only painted with large brushstrokes.
Although EDPYME Alternativa’s borrowers are scattered throughout the region, I live in Chiclayo and it has become the backdrop and the context of my life. To me, one of the most fascinating parts of this small city is the dearth of big box stores. In their absence exists a constant buzz of small-scale commerce.
Let me describe this vibrant economic landscape. In the center of the city, around the main plaza, there is a mixture of restaurants and shops devoted to clothing and electronics (especially cell phones). As one ventures further from the center, the streets become organized by economic themes.
-
- A shop selling paint or glass on Avenida Cuglievan
-
- Another shop selling glass on Avenida Cuglievan
-
- A string of shops selling paint on Avenida Cuglievan
-
- An endless stretch of candy shops on Bolognesi selling King Kong*
-
- A row of salons on Avenida Arica
-
- Four corners and four pharmacies at the intersection of Balta and Pedro Ruiz
-
- In the Mercado Modelo – one of the largest semiformal markets in Perú – there is a seemingly endless amount of organized commerce. For example, the footwear section
(more…)
Unsung Heroes
By Shereef Zaki, KF9, Perú
‘Connecting people through lending,’ precedes ‘alleviating poverty,’ in Kiva’s mission statement. I have come to believe that the goal might actually be of a higher as opposed to a simple aesthetic preference. I mean, maybe we could eradicate poverty individually, but with the concerted effort of a community it can be done more effectively. In a community one can share ideas, efforts, problems, solutions and risks.
And last week that is exactly what Kiva’s partner institutions in Latin America did. For the second year in a row, nearly all the MFIs who work with us in South America sent a representative to our Cumbre (summit, or in this context conference). For a full day we talked about new site features, challenges to the microfinance industry, new organizational efforts and new collective ideas.
Kiva connects people - on many levels
To Have Illusions
By Shereef Zaki, KF9, Perú
What do you want to be when you grow up? What are your hopes? What are your dreams?
Throughout my childhood, these questions constantly attached themselves to the most prosaic daily interactions. In a sense I, and most of my peers, were conditioned to be ambitious dreamers, convinced of the limitless possibilities our futures held (and still hold).
When speaking with borrowers one of our unstated goals as Kiva Fellows is to uncover their latent sense of possibility and excitement at the prospect of success. During interviews I attempt to understand what aspiring entrepreneurs want for themselves and for their children. But one of the harshest realities that I confront concerns the occasional and precise absence of aspiration.
In no way am I implying laziness or even a lack of imagination; rather, survival tends to distract many Kiva clients from the potential realities that accompany success. And then I had an a-ha moment. While interviewing Yesenia Esmeralda Bances Morales (click to contribute to her loan), who seemed bemused when she heard the question ‘what are your hopes or dreams in life’ it dawned on me that it might have been the first time anyone had ever asked her that question.
Yesenia Selling at the Market
Necessity Entrepreneurship
By Shereef Zaki, KF9, Perú
On August 22nd the New York Times published the article On to Plan B: Starting a Business describing the unexpected spike of new entrepreneurs emerging from the wreckage of the crisis. They quote the Kauffman foundation and bring the term ‘necessity entrepreneurship’ into the mainstream. And in so doing they articulate one of the misperceptions that surrounds the incentives behind starting a business.
Sometimes I really get the feeling that the talking heads, professors, text-books and pols just don’t get it. And by ‘it’ I mean anything remotely human. To think that greed gets elevated as some sort of miraculously innovative force in the ‘opportunity entrepreneurship’ model, where interest rates adjustments can fix anything, still boggles my mind. As far as I am concerned, nearly all entrepreneurship is ‘necessity entrepreneurship,’ whether in the US, Egypt, Armenia or in Chiclayo, Peru.
Walking to Angelita's Shack
The will to live and make a better life for one’s children are the driving economic forces in most places. People’s businesses are too small to fail — their families depend on them. The phrase ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ contains a truth lost on contemporary economic thought. Luckily it is not lost on Kiva Lenders, whose generosity grows when ‘opportunities’ dry up.
In the end, I cannot help but laugh out of frustration when I read statements like this: “But research on what is known as post-traumatic growth has found that some people become more resilient when faced with adversity, says Shawn Achor, a Harvard researcher. Creativity surges, he says, as they adapt to a new situation.” I read this during the evening, while during the same day I had been out to visit Angelita Loconi De Teque who is 47 and perseveres through ‘adversity’ to make a better life for the 4 children still in her care.
Recession-proof
By Shereef Zaki, KF9, Perú
As my first week working with EDPYME Alternativa, one of Kiva’s newest partners, draws to a close I can think of only one phrase to describe the world of micro-finance: recession-proof. Having just come out of the economic and political turmoil caused by the so-called, “Great Recession,” in the US, the vitality and celerity of micro-businesses is cast into even greater relief.
I want to begin by introducing you, the Kiva community, to EDPYME Alternativa. Born of an effort in the Peruvian Chamber of Commerce, EDPYME Alternativa is a highly effective and organized MFI whose mission is to improve the living condition of its clients by supporting their entrepreneurial activities, generating employment in the small and micro enterprise sectors, and strengthening the financing for sustainable and profitable businesses in the region.
In addition to issuing financial products like loans EDPYME Alternativa also provides the following services for its clients: bi-yearly medical checkups, agricultural capacitation workshops, technology training workshops, and sales workshops.
And to maintain their presence in the community EA also holds an annual “Chocolatá” where they give out chocolate and presents to the children of their least fortunate clients and clothing to the adults. Additionally, they collect clothing and supplies for clients who are the victims of natural disasters such as the cold snaps, heat waves and earthquakes common to this region.
In the Mercado Modelo, where many Kiva borrowers have setup stands, competition can be fierce but it stokes the fires of their ambition
In spite of having been here only a brief amount of time, EDPYME Alternativa has already demonstrated to me the the recession-resistant nature of microfinance. They lend regardless of crisis and focus on the well being of their clients. This is a world that lacks Best Buy, Wal Mart, Staples and Barnes and Noble. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and the other institutions that line that gilded casino known as Wall Street have peripheral influence here. (more…)
