Author Archive
A Kiva Fellow’s Photo Album: Six Months Along The Equator
By Tara Capsuto, KF12 Ecuador / KF13 Kenya
I recently concluded my Kiva Fellowship that has spanned 6.5 months, 5 of Kiva’s MFI field partners, 2 continents, countless long haul buses, and roughly 12,000 miles of travel. As a member of Kiva Fellow’s 12th class (KF12) I headed to Ecuador in July, 2010 to work with two of Kiva’s field partners, Fundación Espoir and Fundación D-MIRO. I never would have guessed that when December rolled around I’d be summitting Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and trying to pick up Swahili. That’s because KF13 landed me in Nairobi, Kenya to work with Faulu Kenya, Juhudi Kilimo, and Kenya Agency for Development of Enterprise and Technology (KADET).
From witnessing political turmoil in Ecuador to surviving a matatu crash in rural Kenya, there were definitely some harrowing moments but it’s been a truly amazing journey, a journey, that like Kiva itself, has been all about people. I’ve been out of the field for several weeks and I haven’t come up with a great way to summarize my experiences as a Kiva Fellow. Each time someone asks, “So, how was it?!” I kind of stammer, generally respond that it was fantastic (it really was), and share an anecdote or two. The truth is, it was a life-changing experience, or rather, a series of experiences, and it’s hard to know where to begin. In lieu of even attempting to be exhaustive, here are some of my favorite images from my Kiva Fellowship.
Giant bunny rabbits, small loans
By Tara Capsuto, KF13, Kenya
This blog really is about giant bunnies. It’s also about asset financing and how loan groups are working together, with the help of Juhudi Kilimo (one of Kiva’s field partners) to raise rabbits and boost their incomes. Juhudi provides an innovative, agriculture-based, micro-asset financing loan product to assist smallholder farmers in acquiring productive assets such as dairy cows, chickens, irrigation equipment, and most recently, giant Flemish rabbits.
Mobile Payments: the Devil is in the Details
By: Tara Capsuto, KF 13, Kenya
Only 4 million Kenyans have bank accounts. Over 10 million people – approximately 40% of the adult population — in the country now use the M-PESA money transfer service. The rapid growth of mobile payments in Kenya in recent years has been hailed as the key to unlocking financial access for millions of unbanked individuals. While mobile payments are transforming the financial landscape in Kenya, especially for the unbanked, experience at KADET (Kenya Agency for Development of Enterprise and Technology), one of Kiva’s MFI partners in Kenya, highlights that there are also real challenges to making mobile money transfers work for an MFI and their clients. Illiteracy, human error, and fraud are all factors that make mobile payments more complicated than they sound initially.
Kiva Fellows: Kicking off 2011 Around the World
By Kiva Fellows, Various corners of the globe
Around the world, Kiva Fellows are kicking off 2011 in all sorts of different ways. Here’s what a handful of KF13-ers are doing to ring in the New Year. Enjoy and Happy 2011!
Voices from Nairobi: Justice for Kenya?
By Tara Capsuto, KF 13, Kenya
Kenyans breathed a collective sigh of relief on Dec 15th when the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced the much anticipated list of Kenyan leaders suspected of organizing the violence following the disputed 2007 election that left 1,200 Kenyans dead and an estimated 500,000 more displaced from their homes. The list of 6 includes senior public officials like the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Minister of Higher Education, and the Head of Civil Service. Many questions remain as to whether this particular course of justice is the right one, but here’s what 8 Kenyans had to say about it.
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How Faulu Kenya learns from its clients and clients learn from each other
By Tara Capsuto, KF13, Kenya
Nestled in the hills of Kikuyu farmland, 500 of Faulu Kenya’s dairy farming, matatu driving, and kiosk-owning clients gathered for a half day of telling their microfinance institution (MFI) what they really think. Faulu Kenya’s mission statement is, “To listen and empower Kenyans by providing relevant financial solutions.” Faulu, whose name means “success” in Swahili, is one of Kenya’s largest microfinance organizations, serving over 230,000 clients. How do they make sense of the cacophony of 230,000 voices? I got to see it in action at one of Faulu’s “open forums” held annually at each of their 29 major branches.
The Kiva Community: A Kiva Fellow’s Support System
By Tara Capsuto, KF12 Ecuador / KF 13 Kenya
Kiva is ultimately about people: lenders helping borrowers, borrowers helping themselves, and the staff at MFIs and Kiva who make it all happen. As other Fellows have commented before, one of the many humbling aspects of a Kiva Fellowship is the extent to which people reach out to help. One of the most frequent reactions I got in the field was, “You’re traveling and working completely on your own?!” I would answer that, “Technically, yes, I am.” But, as you’ll see, I wasn’t really alone. Here’s a little window into a Kiva Fellow’s support system.
Kiva Fellows 12th class at training in San Francisco in July
Who says loan officer training can’t be fun?!
by Tara Capsuto, Kiva Fellow, Ecuador
Armed with training materials and a couple of motivational video messages from staff members at Fundación D-MIRO Misión Alianza, D-MIRO’s Kiva Coordinator, Rubi, and I left behind the bustling commercial hub of Guayaquil for the coastal city of General Villamil Playas. Our mission: train loan officers for Kiva responsibilities, from understanding how the website works, to conducting interviews and journaling so D-MIRO can post more borrowers to Kiva. Here’s a short description and a video chronicle of our journey, which included some delicious ceviche and inspiring borrower visits.
The Challenge(s) to Getting a Great Borrower Picture
By Tara Capsuto, KF12, Ecuador
Taking a picture of a Kiva borrower sounds easy enough, right? Snap a picture at his or her business, shrink the photo size, upload to Kiva with the borrower profile. Three easy steps. That´s what I thought before I had the chance to see how very challenging this seemingly simple task can be. As many Kiva Fellows can attest, there are actually lots of challenges to snapping that coveted profile picture, you know that one with the borrower doing their soon-to-be-Kiva-funded work, with good lighting and a big smile? It`s that picture makes you want to make a loan before you even get to the borrower description. I’d like to describe one particular challenge to taking borrower pictures and end with a call for suggestions.
Microfinance and Education
By Tara Capsuto, KF12, Ecuador
Since it’s back to school month at Kiva I thought I’d take the opportunity to spotlight the role of education in microfinance. Microfinance alone is not a silver bullet to eradicate poverty. To be most effective, microfinance must be part of a broader schema of social and economic development. Providing education to microfinance clients on topics ranging from marketing to reproductive health is one of the key ways in which microfinance institutions (MFIs) can serve the broader needs of their clients. Let`s take a look at microfinance with education at Fundación Espoir, where I spent the past 6 weeks, and then take a higher level view.
Loans for Gold and Fierce Competition
Tara Capsuto, KF12 Ecuador
Gold was not one of the topics I would have guessed I´d be immersed in as a Kiva Fellow. But last week I found myself in a tiny backroom at Fundacion Espoir in Cuenca, Ecuador learning the details of what is perhaps their most innovative product: loans for gold.
What’s Everyone Talking About in Quito? Pico y Placa
What is everyone talking about in Quito right now? Pico y placa. Pico y Placa is a policy adopted in May in to control excessive traffic and air and noise pollution during peak hours. Pico refers to peak traffic hours and placa to license plate number.
