Posts filed under ‘Kyrgyz Republic’
From Sweets to Riches – The Business of Cookies
Pre-Story: Hollywood Comes to Kyrgyzstan
Last week, our MFI was visited by a pair of filmmakers from Brazil who were shooting a documentary on microfinance and the impact it has on the lives of clients. Their plan was to travel the globe for 10 months and record customers, loan officers, and other microfinance specialists in different parts of the world. After shooting in Brazil and Russia, they were coming to Kyrgyzstan and turned to our organization to help them with the logistics.
We arranged for them to meet and interview several of our clients and staff members in the Issyk-Kul region (about 4 hours away from the capital of Kyrgyzstan – Bishkek – where our headquarters are) and I had an opportunity to come with them to translate the interviews.
As a Kiva Fellow, we typically get to talk to clients frequently to learn more about their lives, businesses and the impact that credit has had on them. However, those conversations are typically brief, since the clients, and often the loan officers that accompany us, are on a tight schedule.
This time around, however, the interviews lasted for more than an hour and were in a relaxed, non-rushed setting. As a result, it offered fascinating insights into the lives of these inspiring business owners and showed many more dimensions to the clients.
I’d like to share with you a story of a husband and wife who have created a successful bakery and how they’ve come to this point.
And That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles…
Behind The Curtain – Getting a New MFI on the Kiva Platform
A Kiva entrepreneur in Kyrgyzstan who has also created a Center of Temporary Stay for Orphaned Children using her own funds and resources. Click to learn more.
By Boris Mordkovich, KF8 – Kyrgyzstan
After doing a Kiva Fellowship in Tajikistan during February and March of this year, I’ve returned to Kiva this summer to do another placement in Kyrgyzstan.
Within the first two weeks at the micro-finance institution, it became very clear that this placement will be quite different from the first one. It’s actually quite amazing how much things can vary from one MFI to the other, from one country to another.
The main difference between the two placements is that the first MFI I was working with in Tajikistan was already on the Kiva platform for over a year when I arrived. They already had an established system in place for collecting data and posting profiles of their borrowers on the website. And while there was some room for improvements here and there, as a whole, it functioned very well. (more…)
