Today is my last day as a Kiva Fellow. Kiva Fellows Class number 10 (or KF10) took me to Zaporozhye, Ukraine where I worked with Kiva’s field partner HOPE Ukraine; KF11 brought me here to Lomé, Togo, where I work with two different field partners, Microfund Togo and Women and Associations for Gain both Economic and Social, or WAGES. I can’t think of two countries more...
Continue Reading >>Stories tagged with Microfund Togo
By Leah Gage, Kiva Fellow in Togo
Our Mission: Find Monsieur Kokou Abalo, a farmer who lives outside of Agbélouvé, Togo, to this month’s repayment and complete a Kiva interview. Kokou Abalo has a loan from Kiva’s field partner Microfund Togo. He’s also the last borrower on my list with whom I have to do an interview.
We’d been down this road before… Two weeks ago I descended on Microfund’s Agbélouvé office and dragged the Agency Chief, the Loan Officer, and Agriculture specialist to walk 2.5 km in the rain to find Kokou’s...
Continue Reading >>By Jessica Chervin, KF9 Togo
Yesterday evening, West Africa made me giddy.
I have been in Togo for almost five months, and in West Africa for almost nine. Here, my senses are never neutral. The most lovely moments are tempered by inconvenience. My daily moto rides to and from Microfund are at once thrilling and relaxing, but the soot and smell of burning garbage, the potholes that make Lome’s boulevards feel like urban mogul fields, and the passage by open landfills smack in the middle of the capital, tinge the experience with unpleasantness. Sensory and...
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