Posts filed under 'Kenya'
Microentrepreneurs and Maxipads
By Alison Carlman, KF8, Kenya
Consider yourself warned: this blog talks about maxipads. There. I said it. Now please keep reading.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the “Girl Effect” campaign. The “Girl Effect” is a about investing in what Africans call the “girl child” and how that can affect a country’s development. According to The Girl Effect, an extra year in primary school statistically boosts girls’ future wages by 10% to 20%, and every additional year a girl spends in secondary school lifts her income by 15% to 25%. And you better believe that the size of a country’s economy is, in no small part, determined by the educational attainment and skill sets of its girls. For Kenya alone, if the 1.6 million teenage girls who drop out of school each year instead finished their secondary education, their incremental earning power would lift Kenya’s GDP by $27 billion over their lifetimes. Not to MENTION the impact it would have on the health and well-being of future families and children of these girls-turned-women.
But it’s not that easy just to “stay in school.” The girls I work with in Kisumu at K-MET’s Safe Space have dropped out of school, many because they became mothers during their teen years.
A Safe Space Member Working to Start a Tailoring Business
I’ve talked a little with these girls, and have learned some other things about why it is so difficult to stay in school. I learned that something as simple as “sanitary towels” (or maxipads -there, I said it again-) can make the difference whether or not girls miss 4 days of school each month and get hopelessly behind in their studies. These products are too expensive to purchase every month, and the alternative is to use unsafe materials (like chopped up pieces of mattresses or old newspapers) which cause infections, leading to more absenteeism.
Look – I realize that you didn’t check the Kiva blog to read about sanitary products. But aren’t you at least slightly incensed by the fact that the lack of these simple supplies keep girls and women from attending school, attending public meetings, or even operating their own businesses for 4 days every month?!
15 comments 29 July 2009
Transition Mode
By Jaclyn Berfond, KF8 Kenya
As one of the last of the KF8 class to arrive in the field – Nairobi, Kenya to be exact – these last two weeks have certainly been a time of transition for me. So you can imagine my surprise, and comfort, when I found that both the MFIs I will be working with – the Small and Micro-Enterprise Programme (SMEP) and Faulu Kenya – were going through their own transitions…
Before I jump into that, however, let me first introduce myself as a newcomer to the Kiva Fellows blog. My name is Jaclyn, and I come from New York, via Geneva, Switzerland. I have been passionate about microfinance for many years, and I am now very excited to have the opportunity to work with not one, but two microfinance institutions here in Kenya!
In the two weeks since I arrived, I have had all sorts of new experiences; eating nyama choma (roast meat) and ugali (a maize-based dish), taking my first matatu (informal taxi vans which are known for loud music and squeezing in as many people as possible), and driving over some of the roughest roads I have ever experienced to visit borrowers in rural towns, Nairobi slums and everything in between. But beyond this very personal (and exciting) transition to a new country, a new culture, I have also been able to learn a little bit about the transition of microfinance going on here in Kenya.
6 comments 22 July 2009
Bound Together, Not Tied Down
By Joel Carlman, KF8 – Kisumu Medical & Education Trust – Kisumu, Kenya
Over the years, there have been many entries on this site (and on many others) about the popular topic of group lending. The fact that borrowers gather once a week, or once a month to deal with any issues they might have or to keep each other accountable is incredible. That group lending has tended to lead to higher repayment rates is a fun little factoid that practitioners of microfinance love to point out. But, that only represents the utility of group lending. Yes, it works, but it’s also beautiful in practice.
Recently, I had the chance to travel a few hours south of Kisumu to two borrower groups. One is located in the rural community of Bware, and the other in the more urban-feeling town of Rongo. Both groups taught me a lot about what group lending is all about, and why, besides serving a utilitarian function, it can also be beautiful.
3 comments 15 July 2009
The One Thing
By Alison Carlman, KF8 – Kenya
As a graduate student of International Development at an African university, I wish that the answer was as simple as finding the “one thing” to alleviate poverty. For marketing purposes, NGOs and “experts” tell us that the answer is so simple, whether it’s access to clean water, economic liberalization, universal healthcare, education, modernization, or microfinance. But 50 years of “Development” in practice teaches us that it’s not so black and white.
Kiva will be the first to tell you: microfinance is not the solution to poverty. Provision of financial services is simply an important part of helping people improve their lives; microfinance is only a “tool” that can help people to meet a portion of their basic physical, social, psychological, and spiritual needs.
Alison at K-MET with Deborah, the Coordinator of the Food Security Program.
I’m working with Kisumu Medical & Education Trust (K-MET), a reproductive health organization in Kenya. One of the many services that K-MET provides is reproductive health education and life-skills training to at-risk young girls ages 10-24. These girls are often young mothers, survivors of rape and unsafe abortion, children of polygamous families, girls who had to drop out of school and work as prostitutes in order to meet theirs and their families’ basic needs.
A loan alone won’t solve these girls’ problems; they need counseling, support, marketable skills, food, daycare, education, encouragement, mentorship…. the list goes on.
(more…)
26 comments 10 July 2009
Pissed Off Kiva Lenders
By John Briggs, KF8 Kenya
Update on sentiment shift: On June 23, Tom, the team captain for the (formerly) Pissed Off Kiva Lenders, changed the team name to Unhappy Kiva Lenders. Tom explained the name change in a posting on the team page: “I want the day to come soon when the team name will be ‘Delighted Again Kiva Lenders’ but the step above in the name change reflects current progress.”
Some Kiva lenders are pissed off about Kiva’s recent launch of loans to borrowers in the United States. Their angry cry has been heard in Kenya.
I arrived in Kenya two weeks ago to work with new Kiva field partner KADET. My marathon orientation-and-training tour is in full swing: this week I met dozens of KADET branch personnel in the western cities of Kisumu and Eldoret.
Successfully setting up Kiva-related operations poses many challenges for MFIs, but my new KADET colleagues made quick work of it. Both branches were able to post borrowers to Kiva on the same day they were introduced to it: Kisumu posted Maulyne’s loan and Eldoret posted Monicah’s loan.
Both loans were funded overnight, and the KADET staff was jubilant. At the Eldoret branch I joined KADET staff in poring over the Kiva lenders and lending teams who had supported Monicah. One lending team for Monicah’s loan jumped out at us: the Pissed Off Kiva Lenders.
Pissed off lenders? People at KADET were surprised. This wasn’t in the Kiva orientation I’d given them. Stephen Makanga, KADET’s integration and donor relations manager, and I decided to open the Pissed Off Kiva Lenders team page to find out more.
Image from the Pissed Off Kiva Lenders' team page
A statement on the page announced, “Kiva’s stated mission is to ‘alleviate poverty’. Poverty is defined as: ‘the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions’. Does that sound more like the situation for US Kiva borrowers or borrowers from the Third World countries?”
Stephen gave the page an incredulous stare and kept reading.
46 comments 20 June 2009
Better Together
Joel Carlman – Kisumu, Kenya – KF8
Hello from Kisumu, Kenya! After 36 hours of flying and several very sound nights of sleep, I’m writing you from the offices of Kisumu Medical and Education Trust (K-MET), our Kiva field partner! I say our because I have the privilege of working alongside my wife, Alison Carlman throughout our Kiva Fellowship. What an experience!
After arriving at the tiny Kisumu airport on Monday evening, we were able to settle into our temporary housing on the K-MET “complex.” We were in a bit of a daze from the sleepless flights and harrowing airport encounters trying to convince airport personnel in every country that we traveled through that they should exempt us from the charges levied on overweight baggage. Since when is 30kg a person overweight!?
Moving on.
The Kenyan experience thus far has been wonderful. From Ekesa, the administrative manager who picked us up from the airport, to the administrative staff, to John Asuke, the director of the revolving loan fund, to the staff at the field offices—everyone we have encountered at K-MET—and in Kenya in general—has warmed our hearts to an unexpected extent. We are so excited to be able to work with this group of exceptional people! (more…)
7 comments 18 June 2009
Two’s company, Kiva’s a crowd
Kiva is a crowdsourcer.
Crowds of lenders are the source of funds for Kiva borrowers. A very recent milestone quietly appeared on the Kiva statistics page — over half a million lenders have funded borrower loans on the Kiva website. That’s one big crowd!
There’s also a crowd of volunteers and avid Kiva boosters: hundreds of volunteer editors and translators, dozens of Kiva Fellows in the field, umpteen heroic souls who volunteer at Kiva headquarters in San Francisco, and the nearly five-thousand-strong group of Kiva Friends, the best compadres ever.
It’s good company to keep. Much of our interaction is in, and uniquely facilitated by, the electronic ether (the Internets, a series of tubes). Face-to-face meetings may never occur, but can be a cause for celebration when they do.
5 comments 4 June 2009
Growing a Business, Saving a Child
An estimated half of Kenyans with AIDS are receiving anti-retroviral treatment, only about a third of Kenyan children are. How can micro-loans help change this?
Continue Reading 3 comments 29 May 2009
I am living in Kisumu, Kenya
I am living in Kisumu, Kenya. Here is a picture of the street where I volunteer, in the Nyalenda slum.
Walking around the slum, one quickly comes across evidence of the post election violence. Burned buildings are common. As are random herds of goats.
White people in Kisumu are usually in self-contained SUVs. Not too many ever enter the Nyalenda slum. As a result, as I walk, I am usually chased by children.
If I stay in one place for too long, they gather to stare.
In the slum, you find many teenage girls. Their stories show a lot of common themes.
I am 20 years old. My parents passed away when I was 14. A lack of school fees made me leave school. We were left 10 children. Everyone searched for places to stay but I was left alone and went to be a street girl. A guy hired me as a maid but forced me to have sex. Within one month he raped me and I was pregnant. I went to the Kenyan police and they did not take any action about that case. They wanted money but I didn’t have even a single cent to give them. I became a mother of a child but there was no job or anything to do. I wake up early in the morning to wash clothes for people. They only give me 50 shillings (*equivalent of less than $1USD) in order to get food to eat with my child. Without washing clothes, we go to sleep hungry. If I can get someone to take care of me and return me back to school, then I can be proud and be happy as some people are. Maybe my life can change and I can be someone different.
I’m a girl of age 20 years. I dropped out of school in 2005 because I did not have money to continue my education. I have been staying at home doing nothing. I have no money to start a business. I have no knowledge of anything. I tried to convince my father to look for money to take me to high school but he did not. I have been walking day and night to look for employment even as a housemaid but the salary is as low as 100 shillings a month (*$1.31 USD per month). There is a time I succeeded in getting employment in a rich man’s house. He promised to pay me well but was exploiting me sexually. When I threatened to report him he sent me away. I was frustrated beyond words.
I am 22 years old. I am the first born in a family of five. I live with my mother and step-father and dropped out of school. I used to go clubbing and really had a bad company. I got pregnant and now I have a kid, he’s 2.5 years old. Life has been so hard I even tried marriage to find happiness and comfort. I was married to a young man who gave me everything but mistreated me and my kid. I had no choice but to stay with him since he provided me everything. Nobody cared about me. My husband was cheating on me but there was nothing I could do. Now I am HIV positive.
A Sisterhood for Change participant posing with her child
Kisumu Medical and Education Trust (“KMET”) is one of KIVA’s partners. In 2006, KMET created a program to address the seemingly hopeless situation for teenage girls. KMET recruited orphans, single mothers, high school drop-outs, HIV/AIDs patients and commercial sex workers for a program called Sisterhood for Change. The stories above are taken from profiles written by the girls recruited by the program.
Susan teaches tailoring skills to an SFC girl
When Sisterhood for Change began, KMET expected that upon graduation, the girls would immediately get jobs in local communities. Unfortunately, Kisumu just… doesn’t have jobs. So even with their new vocational skills, the girls were still unemployed and relying upon men for income.
So KMET conceptualized an idea for Safe Spaces. KMET has purchased a building in the Nyalenda slum and stocked it with the equipment needed to run tailoring, hairdressing and catering businesses. KMET will train the girls in business and entrepreneurship, and then they will be free to work in the Safe Space for as long as they wish. The girls will be purchasing supplies using KIVA loans.
For a long time, I wondered whether it could work. We held a lot of preliminary meetings to discuss our plans for the Safe Spaces, and the girls usually yawned in indifference. I would smile. I would pump my fists in excitement. I would lure them with cookies. Still, they seemed disinterested.
But now it’s actually happening! They are working in the Safe Spaces, selling french fries, avocado juice, and sassy hairstyles. Training takes place from April 29th-May 7th, with the generous help fof the Child at Venture Foundation. I still sometimes wonder if they are ready. I still sometimes wonder if Muhammad Yunus would approve. These girls really are the poorest of the poor, and we are trained that microfinance is not always effective with that group. Will high school drop outs be able to run their own businesses? We’ll find out…
Would Muhammad Yunus lend to us?
Milena Arciszewski is a year-long Kiva Fellow. She has been in Kenya since January 2009, helping to develop the Safe Space initiative. She loves getting emails, and can be reached at milena.kathryn@gmail.com.
13 comments 21 April 2009
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