With few exceptions, Kiva borrowers have greeted my visits to their homes and businesses with the sentiment captured in the blog title, that is to say with skepticism and unease. Visits can start awkwardly and end awkwardly. But sometimes they inspire; borrowers graciously share their story – their successes and struggles, their hopes and fears – with a complete stranger...
Continue Reading >>Stories tagged with Prisma Microfinance
After my first week as a Kiva Fellow my short answer is no, and I guess the slightly longer answer, definitely not! That is what the clients of Microfinanzas PRISMA have shown me, especially Rosa of San Juan de Miraflores in Lima, Peru. Rosa is preparing the lunch she will serve to customers in the back kitchen when Ángela, the Kiva Assistant in the Lima Sur office of PRISMA, and I arrive. She comes outside immediately to talk to us, bringing a savory smell of potatoes with her.
Rosa is 56 years old and preparing to open her own restaurant in her house in the next year or so. How...
Continue Reading >>As someone from a social science background, my bias has always been to consider economic inclusion—microfinance in particular—as one aspect of a broader goal, that of social inclusion by virtue of an increased standard of living. By social inclusion, I mean access to education, healthcare and systems that will afford basics such as food/water/shelter. In fact, my interest in microfinance stems from the fact that it can be a powerful tool to usher people into a realm of social inclusion who would otherwise be marginalized as a result of their economic exclusion. After one month in...
Last week was my last week as a Kiva Fellow. As I sat in the cold air of the bar Emprender took me to celebrate the end of my time with their offices and the national Dia del Trabajador (or workers day), I realized how far I have come. And how hard it would be to sum up the personal aspect of being a Kiva Fellow. And equally hard to sum up what microfinance looks like to me.
Here is an effort to show what I mean. Take a look at an album I made of my favorite entrepreneur photos from my placement in Honduras and in Bolivia.
I had just spent a solid hour learning the lilted,...
Continue Reading >>Day in and day out I swerve through Honduran shanty towns, isolated hovels, over exquisite landscapes and into ditches. I can’t open my eyes wide enough, and at the end of everyday I have more questions than the day before. The questions are complex and every one leads me down a rabbit hole. Its starts like this: To begin with, how do we really measure poverty here in Honduras? And once I identify the poor, I wonder, does Prisma reach the poorest of the poor? If not, is it enough that they reach the middle poor, and by virtue of growing small business opportunity, they grow opportunities...
Continue Reading >>Some of you out there may be wondering what a typical day is like “in the field.” Yesterday was one of those days. I spent the morning driving around with Mario Cruz, one of Prisma´s loan officers.
We zig zag around town, dodging traffic in a 1982 Toyota Corolla disguised as a taxi. Esau, the husband of one of the loan officers, is driving us around town as he usually does. I’m more than happy to take the front seat today, as like most cars here, there are no seat belts in the back. (Although I’m not sure how much a seat belt would help in an accident given that most of the...
Continue Reading >>I’ve been hanging out with the Prisma staff for almost three weeks now. The moment I stepped off the plane, they made me feel right at home. They’ve been eager to take me out in the field to meet borrowers, and educate me on the intricacies of microfinance in Honduras. It’s hard to believe it’s only been three weeks.
I am based out of the main office in the Loma Linda Sur neighborhood of Tegucigalpa. However, Kiva clients are spread throughout Prisma’s five offices so I am traveling between all of them. In addition to Loma Linda Sur, there’s the Pedregal office which services...
Continue Reading >>I arrived in Tegucigalpa, Honduras last Wednesday. Two of the staff members of Prisma Honduras, Orbelina and Lucy, were kind enough to brave the rush hour traffic and pick me up at the airport. You can read more about the staff members and the various Prisma offices on Dr. Kendall Mau’s informative blog: .
My first impressions of Tegucigalpa were that I could be in any large suburban US city, albeit with a little Latin flare! In my first three days here, I visited two different malls, both packed with people shopping at many of the same stores you find in the US, went to Wal-...
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