He is named Global Young Leader by the World Economic Forum and is on the Fortune’s 40 under 40 list for the most influential people under the age of 40.
It is easy to become impressed, maybe intimidated by a person that holds such accolades. But Premal Shah, president of Kiva, is the last person to become intimidated by. However, impressed? Yes, highly. And he was coming my way to Nicaragua.

Premal Shah’s lender page on Kiva. Note that he made over 300 loans.

The only time I met Premal up close was during Kiva Fellows training week in San Francisco when he gave a presentation on our last day of training. We had thrown a (modest) party at our temporary Fellows apartment the night before. But even after 3 hours of sleep, Premal is a guy who kept us at the edge of our uncomfortable seats because his energy gets across so easily.

I instantly woke up when he showed us a graph plotting his “level of aliveness” over time, indicating highs and lows in transitioning from hearing about microfinance for the first time, life as a management consultant, towards being part of the startup phase at Paypal, its acquisition by eBay, ultimately resulting in a burnout, and then Kiva.
You can tell when someone is clearly passionate about his work. Premal appeared to be a great public speaker with big dreams in expanding Kiva’s reach further down towards the base of the pyramid.

But this was within the walls of Kiva’s headquarters. Now, how does Kiva’s leader go out and about into the field? I was curious.

The news about his planned arrival soon spread across the microfinance institution where I was based. CEPRODEL’s leadership team, mostly aged 50+ and on the job for more than 20 years, of course expected Premal to be someone with a similar profile as themselves. So I had to prepare them a bit for a dynamic, informal and young person. Not white, but Indian. Not 50+, but only 36 years old. And no he did not want to spend all day in the office talking Powerpoints or numbers.
An extra excitement was that a film crew of Goldman Sachs TV would be following us. This was for another award Premal has recently won. Their feature film about Premal will be released soon.

Over the course of the week we visited 4 of the 5 partner microfinance institutions that Kiva works with in Nicaragua. And Premal met about 20 Kiva borrowers. With each of them, he took at least 20 minutes to get to know the person, their dreams and explain Kiva in his best Spanish.

Premal chatting with Danelia del Carmen, whom he would later lend $25 to, while the Goldman Sachs crew is filming.

At CEPRODEL, we started with an overview of the microfinance industry in Nicaragua. They explained the devastating effects of the No Pago Movimiento (No Payment Movement) in 2008, when microfinance clients in the north decided to stop repaying their loans. Many of our partners are still recovering from that crisis.

CEPRODEL’s main focus are housing loans. They gave us a tour through their social department where there is a team fully dedicated to designing and building housing projects.
We then visited some of the Kiva clients around artisan town Masaya, amongst them hammock seamstress Danelia del Carmen, who did good business with Premal and the Goldman Sachs film crew. When Danelia took out another loan from Kiva, a few weeks after his visit, Premal got in and is now one of her lenders.

Premal with the AFODENIC’s CEO surrounded by graduates thanks to microloans.

AFODENIC had local press lined up for us, and a conference with students who had been on Kiva and were now able to proudly show us their diplomas.
For example, Claudia Maria is the first person ever in her family to go to university, and now has obtained two degrees of which one with honors.

Claudia Maria showing here two diplomas and a print from her Kiva.org borrower profile.

Premal gave a demo of the website Kiva.org and made them promise to, one day, lend to someone else in need for an education loan.

Furthermore, AFODENIC invests into sanitation solutions as well as developing agriculture skills in rural areas. Nicaragua also faces huge migration from the countryside into the cities. The CEO Don Francisco (pictured on the group photo with glasses) wants to make sure that youth does not forget how to produce food because “In the end we cannot eat money”. His institution has helped build an agricultural university and provides loans to its students.

MiCredito is a perfect example that when some in the industry are hit, others can profit by jumping into the gap and innovate. During and immediately after the crisis, they found a way to remain financially strong and even reach growth by focusing on the rural areas of Nicaragua, whereas other microfinance institutions were barely surviving the crisis. They also showed their advances in technology. Loan officers use smartphones to capture all information in the field and directly send everything over e-mail to the Kiva Coordinator in the Managua headquarters for upload. It saves time and trees.

Happy staff at MiCredito

The small but specialized microfinance institution ADIM gave us insights into the important work and most pressing struggles of the Kiva Coordinator. 90% of ADIMs clients are women and the majority are group loans. We brainstormed with the staff about what to do when the photo is always taken at the moment of disbursement inside the ADIM office? It is crowded and chaotic with lots of groups waiting for their money and babies and kids crying and running around. There is not much time nor opportunity to shoot an attractive photo, resulting in what we call at Kiva firing squad photos: sad faces against a wall.

Firing squad borrower photos….no further comment

Premal’s idea: have the borrowers hold up a piece of paper stating their favorite quote or their dream. We’ll see if the Kiva Coordinator can convince the shy ladies that make up ADIM’s client population to such change. Keep an eye on ADIM’s loans to see if this advice was effective.

ADIM also showed us the amazing power of Microfinance+ when an organisation offers more than just microcredits. ADIM has developed extensive training programs for financial education, entrepreneurial skills and women empowerment.

Educational material created by ADIM for its borrowers, used in workshops.

Some reactions I gathered from our field partners after the week:

“Oh I first thought the camera man (a white guy over 40) was the president!”

“He was soooo nice. A very humble man but with lots of great ideas.”

“You can tell he has a vision for Kiva and helping the poor. Makes Kiva our favorite source of funding.”

“Is everyone at Kiva so young? How can that be?”

Meeting a Kiva borrower who owns a pulperia, a small corner shop where daily products such as cigarettes and shampoo are sold per unit or in small packages

Fun fact: I caught Premal taking his shoes off under the table while listening to a monologue (in Spanish) by one the CEOs, which he then rapidly needed to put back on because he was jumping out of his chair to get to the (unused) whiteboard to draw something.

Premal as a Kiva Fellow: Interviewing and filming a carpenter

For me personally, it was a great experience to see the many different ways of microfinance in action across the Kiva partner portfolio in Nicaragua. Brainstorming with Premal about the direction of Kiva, his current challenges and hearing his vision for the organisation first-hand was a unique opportunity. And oh yeah, I also highly enjoyed the fancy lunches and rides in air-conditioned cars.

In case you have the opportunity to meet Premal, prepare to have an answer ready for his #1 favorite question to ask, no matter whether you are Kiva borrower, CEO, Kiva Fellow or random person in the street:

“How would you like to see your organisation/life/business 10 years from now?”

Luan Nio is a Kiva Fellow in Nicaragua. Do you also want to do good, travel, meet microfinance clients and Kiva staff? Consider applying for a Kiva Fellowship. You can follow Luan on Twitter @luan_nio

We think we are all well-travelled, educated and smart, with great interpersonal skills and able to handle difficult situations. But what does actually happen at a Kiva Fellow’s first day in the office?
Most of us have not worked in microfinance before, have never visited their destination country and sometimes don’t speak the local language as well as they might think.

Here are impressions from around the globe during our first day with our assigned Kiva field partner.

Prepare for the unexpected
What to do when you find yourself starting one day earlier than agreed? What if the meeting is not with the Kiva Coordinator but instead with the CEO of your microfinance institution. And what if you had no shower, no shave and no sleep for 36 hours? Ask our Fellow in Peru as he was launched into his fellowship.
In Nicaragua the office celebrated a very nice Dia de los Padres (Fathers Day). The celebration was preceded by a group prayer and a number of funny video clips with a serious moralistic undertone. Please refer to www.yesheis.com > God does not exist.

Dress code
Kiva did train us to dress formally as office costumes in our host countries are often more formal than at home. So we bring our shirts and skirts, ties and high heels even though we have to overcome the heat and dusty roads. However, the level of formality may change over the week.
The Fellow in Cameroon says: “Met more people than I can count across 3 branch offices and I was probably the only westerner within miles. I don’t think that I could’ve stood out anymore than I did in downtown Yaounde since I was in a white shirt and red tie. Come to think of it I may have looked like an airline attendant. This attire was appropriate for the office however, at least on my first day. Monday’s are either usually a bit more formal or they dressed up for me. Most people haven’t worn ties the rest of the week.”
Our Fellow in Ghana adds: “I was overdressed because casual Fridays are observed at my MFI (and it was Friday)”

What’s in a name
Better remember all those new names very well!! One fellow missed out on a potential first date as he was told that “Maria” had inquired about him if he was still single, but uhm…which lady was Maria again?
The Fellow in Cambodia was unable to pronounce most of the 100+ names he got introduced to on Day One. But he doesn’t worry because they couldn’t pronounce his name either.

Smiles all over….or not?
Many of us see friendly faces all day. The fellow in Nicaragua was immediately put into the car to help her find an apartment, and she was invited into the home of the Finance Director for a drink with his family.
Another Fellow describes her first day as follows: “I actually have an office of my own, while 4 people work in the office next to mine. Not sure if that is to be nice with me and give me privacy OR to give them privacy.
During the first meeting with my MFI’s executive director and the KC they were really surprised to hear that I’m going to stay for 4 months. They thought it was 2 months and when I said 4 they were like “ah really… well that changes everything” and there were a few seconds of awkward silence until I said “well I hope that is not a disappointment”. And then they realized and said “no no it’s great” – GREATT!! ”

Productivity challenges
We all aim to be as productive as possible, arriving with an ambitious agenda for the day. However, local circumstances not always allow us to execute as intended. Arriving two hours late in Pakistan after transportation issues is no problem. The office shuts down already at 3:30pm anyway.
One fellow experienced a power cut in her building from 10.30h until 4pm. Having no internet is terrible … but much harder to handle is sitting in heat and humidity with no AC. The fellow in Burkina Faso is having to face this heat on a daily basis. We all feel so sorry for her that we like Kiva to sponsor a loan to her MFI to get the AC working.
Another Fellow experienced TIA (This is Africa) firsthand when his appointment arrived an one hour late, and very soon after that had to leave him for another meeting. There is another Fellow in Zambia who is facing dramatic internet connectivity challenges. But we’ve lost contact with her due to this very fact and can unfortunately not report about her first day.

Food festivities
One of the most exciting aspects of a new workplace is lunch. We filled our stomachs with exotic meals like fufu, gallo pinto, chapati and mithai, washed away with milky tea and chicha. The fellow in Cambodia however was treated with a special kind of Welcome Lunch:
“I began my work with the KC and after a half an hour a woman with a tray walks in and leaves it on a table, I asked “What is that?” They told me that was my “Welcome Party”! They brought some Cokes and we began eating… You must be wondering what was on the tray, well I asked the same and it was: Pig`s Stomach, Tongue, Ear, Intestine, Liver and Cartilage with a side of some kind of weird papaya I had never had before… Everything was actually delicious, I really like the ear and the intestine.”

You thought that Day One was exciting? The Fellow in Kenya received a Medex Evacuation File on Day Two of his fellowship due to the bombings in Mombasa. He was not allowed to use public transport or go to any public places, hence stayed in his hotel for 36 hours…

So far for our first days. Stay tuned for more Kiva Stories from the Field.

Luan Nio is a Kiva Fellow in Nicaragua and almost fed up with her daily gallo pinto. Inspired by these experiences? Find out how you can become a Kiva Fellow. The next class will start in January 2013 and deadline to apply is September 23, 2012.

There was a three-part theme set to guide the educational and celebratory sessions. The theme was “Passion for God. Passion for the Philippines. Passion for the Filipino Poor”.  Every speaker or event was chosen to address one of these themes. Pastors and spiritual leaders spoke to address the spiritual health of the CCT staff as well as teach them how to cultivate spiritual transformation of their borrowers. Professors and experts on Filipino culture addressed the latter two themes in order to re-ignite the passion of the staff for their unique culture and fascinating history as a nation. Lastly, President Ruth Callanta identified the marginalized impoverished groups of the Philippines and identified the steps to begin or refine outreach efforts to make financial and support services more available. These groups include the landless agricultural workers of the Visayas, the B’laan tribe of Mindanao and a group of people known as “fisher folks”.

What follows is a pictorial presentation of the 20th anniversary celebration:

CCT received recognition for years of service in microfinance and other support services

Cultural dance and instruments from the B'laan tribe in Mindinao, one of the identified marginalized groups to receive services from CCT

Cultural Dance from the island of Palawan

Freedom Wall allowed CCT staff to write messages about their MFI and celebration

"I love CDO" refers to Cagayan de Oro, one of the cities in Mindanao that lost thousands of residents to Typhoon Sendong

This skit portrays a scenario involving CCT's insurance products that are offered to their partners

Cultural Dance from the island of Palawan

Cultural dance from the B'laan tribe of Mindinao

Palawan cultural dance

Jill Hall is part of Kiva Fellows 16th class, working with Center for Community Transformation (CCT) in the Philippines. She is enjoying all the sights, sounds and food of her new home, the Philippines.  Please support CCT borrowers by reading about their stories and making a loan today. Be a part of the movement of Kiva and join CCT’s lending team or check out CCT’s partner page. Former posts written by Jill about her experiences in Manila and Center For Community Transformation (CCT) can be found at:

The Circle of Life; Filipino Style

Work is cancelled; Typhoon Day

Girlie’s Peanut Butter: Borrower Verification in the Philippines

Study Now Pay Now: Funding Higher Education in the Philippines

And the Winner is….

All kidding aside, Kiva New Orleans is great. The “MFI” (Microfinance Institution) with which I am working is ASI Federal Credit Union and its community partner, GoodWork Network, a nonprofit microbusiness development agency that helps ASI to source microloans.

Goodwork Network assists small and start-up businesses with classes and advice helping New Orleans’ residents advance their operations to the point where, if it is determined they need a loan, they can be passed on to ASI and then to Kiva. It’s an amazing program. I have only been here a week and I have met dozens of individuals working tirelessly to make this Kiva City NOLA program work. There’s even a television ad.

From day one I fell in love with this city and its residents. I was won over immediately. Back in San Feancisco, during the Kiva Fellows Training week, the Kiva staff devoted some time to “Winning Over your MFI,” because in some placements the Kiva fellow is ignored or under appreciated. Things were easy for me in the Big Easy. Not only was I welcomed with open arms on my first day, I was given a car to use while I am here. Many apologies to my KF-16 & 17 classmates — you can think of me when you are traveling on over-crowded public buses and unpaved roads. (I feel for you — been there, done that.)

I split my time between the Goodwork Network office and ASI’s Community Center in the Bywater area of N’Awlins. There’s much work to be done as evidenced by the houses surrounding the Community Center. They still have the large X’s painted on them by the first responders after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. The X’s were a code that the building was searched, who searched it, the date it was searched and whether anyone was found inside, dead or alive. It’s a bleak reminder of the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina, and the fact that the X’s are still visible means that we all still have a lot of work to do.  If you are an small business owner in New Orleans and are thinking about a Kiva loan got to KivaNOLA.org and click on “to borrow” button.  If you want to lend, go to the same place and click on the “to lend” button.

Charlotte Makoff
Kiva Fellow | New Orleans

Charlotte is a Kiva Fellow in KF-16, the 16th Kiva Fellows Class, with ASI Federal Credit Union and is now living in New Orleans. Charlotte has lived in India, Japan, and has built houses with Habitat For Humanity in Ethiopia, Zambia and India.

For more information about Kiva, click here. To read about ASI Federal Credit Union, click here. You can also follow Kiva New Orleans on facebook, join the Kiva New Orleans lending team.

Institutional birthdays in the US can be fairly stuffy affairs. Seating is often arranged to maximize contact with those in the institution with whom one has never spoken (perhaps for good reason, argue some guests) and they tend to be remembered more for inappropriate comments inserted into otherwise boring speeches rather than for the celebrations that they hope to be but rarely are.

Not so at the Cooperativa San Jose de Chimbo (CSJ). Instead of standing around awkwardly, everyone secretly wishing they were somewhere else, the 47th birthday of CSJ (conveniently combined with the office Xmas party) was a chaotic and energetic no-holds-barred inter-office Karaoke war. There wasn’t a bored face in the crowd.

Upon arrival, I found myself quickly ushered to the judges table across the large open dance hall from the stage, which had an impressive array of microphones and speakers as well as three unidentifiable steel objects evenly spaced across the front. They looked like iron champagne glasses. I was told, along with my fellow judges (the general manager of the credit union and the three directors of the members’ association, one of whom also happens to be the booming “ladies and gentlemen” voice of the local radio station) that I would be judging contestants on vocal quality, presentation, and the ‘use of the stage’.

I quickly discovered what the mysterious objects were (and what ‘use of the stage’ meant) when the third singer stepped up. It was the janitor from CSJ headquarters, Don Vinicio, who as it turns out is an impressive baritone with a mean stage presence and a penchant for ballads. As he began to sing, someone walked in front of the stage with a match in hand. Sparks and flames began shooting up from two of the metal objects in front of Don Vini to a height of at least 15 feet. (Please excuse the quality of the following clips… they’re fun, but they aren’t nearly as awesome in terms either content or video skills as Laurie’s video from yesterday)

That was only the beginning. As the next group began their set, a little boy of no more than 7, wearing a bright yellow shirt and what appeared to be a two foot by two foot papier-mache buffalo or mule head, came stumbling on unsteady little legs through the doorway and onto the open dance floor. In place of horns, the buffalo had the same metal champagne glasses shooting sparks and flames precariously close to the thin cloth hung from the ceiling, until they slowly fizzled out into smoke. The lack of flames didn’t stop him from continuing to dance around the floor, still wearing the smoking buffalo head.

Just after the set had ended, he and his giant mask collapsed onto the floor. The little boy then proceeded to leave the smoking buffalo head in the middle of the floor and promptly run for the exit laughing wildly, arms flailing.

Ever make a Kiva loan to CSJ that said the borrower lived in Chillanes? The flaming buffalo- headed child is the son of the Loan Officer responsible for distributing that loan! The two women clapping (around the 43rd second of the video) on the left at the far end of the table (one in blue, the other in white) are “the Karinas”, CSJ’s two Kiva Coordinators who happen to have the same first name.

There was a brief interlude during which we all got up and danced to a DJ, after which we went back to our seats to listen to the remaining performances. These included CSJ’s lawyer and assistant director singing a folksy local favorite, and a very pregnant loan officer belting out cheesy love songs; she ended up winning handily after a sub-par performance from Don Vini during the second round head-to-head Karaoke-off.

After the awards presentations, the announcers unexpectedly invited myself, CSJ’s general manager, and three directors of the member’s association to sing “El Rey”, an awesomely absurd classic Mexican ranchera song that is popular all over Latin America for its not-so-subtle allusions to the King of Spain (and to a more general tendency to exaggerate one’s own importance). Sadly, there is no video of this; I think the cameraman was on stage singing with us!

The rest of the night jumped around between dancing, speeches and eating, until a live band (of professionals) came out. After that, nobody dared interrupt the dancing; and when the band finally packed it in, we all went out for more.

CSJ is not always like this. Four social performance badges and a four-star risk rating on Kiva don’t earn themselves; the good folks of the Cooperativa San Jose work hard. But as it turns out, when given the chance, they play hard too. Tomorrow is my last day here, and I already miss them for both, among other things. Happy 47^th to the Cooperativa San Jose!

Marcus Berkowitz is a first-time fellow with Cooperativa San José (CSJ) in the western Andes of Ecuador’s Bolívar province. Show support for CSJ´s hardworking rural borrowers by making a loan. Or get even more involved by joining CSJ’s lending team!

Kiva is both technology driven and food oriented. When you work at Kiva, you get 20-30 emails a day, most of which are about some delectable treat on the table of wonders. The remainder of the emails are about happy hour, microfinance cafe, microfinance pub, or a party at a Kivan’s house on an upcoming weekend. I was a Kiva Intern with the Fellows Program. I helped Jacob, Eric and Dave with vetting, selecting and training the Kiva Fellows before they left for their varied posts around the globe. (Kiva is in over 60 countries). I love traveling and living in and experiencing new cultures. Working as a Kiva intern made me want to go into the field with the Kiva Fellows Program.

So here I am, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Not exactly a foreign country, but the most colorful city in the United States. This place is amazing, it’s one big party. On any random weekend I can be found sitting in a cafe or a club listening to live music. I attended the Oak Street Po-Boy Festival with at least 50,000 other revelers. Tomorrow night I am going to have dinner at a restaurant owned by a Kiva borrower and afterward I am going on a pub crawl on Tchoupitoulas (pronounced “Chop-A-Tool-ess”) Street in Uptown. Next week is a Rock ‘n Bowl party with live jazz and bowling with my “MFI.”

For this blog post, I am going to tell you about my typical day here in New Orleans. But first a little about the “typical day” topic. Every Kiva Fellow Applicant has to write what he or she thinks a typical day as a Kiva Fellow is going to be. It’s sort of a wild guess exercise because there really is no typical day. The point of making the applicant write it is to see how creative the applicant is, how well the applicant can write, whether the applicant did his (or her) homework and what his expectations are as a Kiva Fellow. As an intern for the Fellows program, I have read dozens. Some were so good I read them out loud to my colleagues at Kiva. Some were funny and some were like reading a calendar entry — 7:30 Wake up, take shower, 8:00 am Eat breakfast, 8:30 am Take bus to MFI . . .” Needless to say, the calendar entries weren’t the most interesting ones. Some were so unrealistic that it appeared the applicant hadn’t a clue as to what a Kiva Fellow does in the field. Not every Kiva Fellow has the same experience, and my situation, being in the United States, is unusual. If you are an applicant looking for ideas, you won’t find a lot here. Here goes my real typical day in Kiva City — New Orleans.

This morning I woke up in my little rented house in Uptown. Because it’s a Thursday, I have to decide which office I am going to work in today. In New Orleans, Kiva works with ASI Federal Credit Union, ASII, a non-profit arm and organization of ASI called “A Shared Initiative,” and the Good Work Network, another non-profit organization that works within New Orleans assisting microbusinesses. I have a choice of three offices, the ASI headquarters in Harahan, the ASII office in the upper Ninth Ward, or the Good Work Network office on OC Haley Boulevard. Luckily, ASI has given me a car, a blue Toyota Corolla, to use while I am here. I usually gravitate to the Good Work Network office. It has the best internet, and prospective Kiva borrowers come into the Good Work Network office for intial intake. I even have my own, desk, cubicle and computer. I decided this morning to start at Good Work Network. I drive down St. Charles St., a tree lined boulevard with trolley cars running down the center. It’s another beautiful day. I say out loud, to myself, “I love this city.” There are yard signs up inviting me to a street fair, a pub crawl, a block party. There are old faded Mardi Gras beads hanging from the trees. I pass beautiful pristine antebellum mansions and boarded up houses with the large Katrina X’s spray painted on them. I park my car across from the Franz Building where the GoodWork Network is. I park right next to house that hasn’t been touched since Katrina. Plants grow from the roof. It’s missing walls, windows, a roof, occupants, but somehow in all of its wrecked glory, it still looks beautiful. I photograph it and my car. I hope nothing falls over from it onto the car.

At noon, a couple comes in to apply for a Kiva loan. I have to ask them a lot of personal financial questions. I hope they pass muster. My inclination is to give everyone who comes in a loan, but underwriting thinks otherwise. The Kiva Coordinator and/or the Kiva Fellow separates the improbable applicants from the probable applicants. There are guidelines: a borrower cannot have charge-offs on their credit report, and must be current on their existing debts with no 60 day past due notices within the last year. The actual credit score isn’t looked at, but it helps if it’s good and hurts if it’s really bad. If a loan applicant is denied, he or she can work with a business counselor at Good Work Network for credit counseling and business advice. If they can fix their issues they can return and reapply for a Kiva loan. This is just the initial intake for preliminary approval. Once we get to the next stage there is a mountain of paperwork involved and the borrowers need to be shepherded through the system. The Kiva Fellow works closely with the Kiva Coordinator, Leslie, the head of Good Work Network, Phyllis, and Lang, the Business Lending Program Manager at ASII, to make sure all of the paperwork is in order for each and every applicant. Once a loan is approved, a photo is taken, waivers and releases are signed and the Kiva profiles are written. So far, I have written three of them.

After meeting with the clients, I drive 20 minutes to the Lebanon Cafe on Carrollton Ave. to meet with Sarah, the Executive Director of ASII. She’s the head honcho for the Kiva program and she wants to check in on the progress of Kiva. Sarah is wonderful and looks like she could have been Miss Louisiana, but it turns out she’s really from Mississippi. (So, maybe she was Miss Mississippi.) Her goal is to get Kiva New Orleans from pilot to active. We discuss this during a delicious lunch with hummus, pita bread and eggplant sandwiches (that look suspiciously like Po’ Boys). Its a very productive lunch. I learn that ASII has some really innovative loan products — including grocery store loans and education loans. We bounce around some other ideas.

After lunch, I drive to the upper Ninth Ward to work out of the ASII office. At that office is Lang, a dynamic woman who knows her loans, borrowers, practices and procedures backward, forward and sideways. She has a very high energy level and is filled with information about New Orleans and the Vietnamese immigrant community. There’s always lots to learn form Lang. We discuss repayment reporting, underwriting, corporate best practices and loan delinquencies, if any.

I check my work plan. The internet connection is “iffy” there so I work offline on my laptop. I do whatever I can to get my work done. Afterwork, I go straight home to clean up my house. I have guests coming from out of town. When you live in New Orleans, you suddenly become popular. Everyone wants to visit. It’s a fun city, what can I say?

Charlotte is a Kiva Fellow in KF-16, the 16th Kiva Fellows Class, with ASI Federal Credit Union and is now living in New Orleans. Charlotte has lived in India, Japan, and has built houses with Habitat For Humanity in Ethiopia, Zambia and India.

For more information about Kiva, click here. Kiva.orgTo read about ASI Federal Credit Union, click here. asifcu.orgYou can also follow Kiva New Orleans on facebook, facebook.com/kivaNOLAjoin the Kiva New Orleans lending team.

“We built a little house” she replied happily, when I asked how she had used the loan. I looked down at my sheet. Oops. This loan, according to its Kiva description, was for corn seeds and fertilizers.

"A little house". Typical rural house made of wood, with a part-thatched, part-aluminum roof. Chillanes Canton.

Of course, we have no right to insist on any particular loan use. That’s not the point. But of the first three borrowers with whom I had spoken as part of Kiva’s Borrower Verification process, not a single one had used the loan for the purpose listed on Kiva. And two of three had built houses with their loans. What gives?

As I continued with other projects such as redesigning the way that the Cooperativa San Jose in Ecuador gathers information for Kiva profiles and follow-up journals, I found a clear common thread. Often (though not always) families’ ultimate goal is to build or upgrade their house, whether directly by putting some of the loan money into home improvement, or indirectly by using the loan to grow their business, and then funneling the increased profits into their housing plans. Their other most common long-term goal is the education of their children, to which a similar dynamic of direct and indirect funding applies.

Upon discovering this, my first thought was a critique; well, obviously CSJ isn’t adequately meeting all of its borrowers’ needs. They should offer housing and student loans, I concluded, and we should fund them through Kiva. I was going to find out why they didn’t.

The truth, as always, turned out to be much more complicated. For poor folks in Ecuador, building or adding to a house usually means upgrading from a somewhat rickety wooden structure (see image above) to a stronger cement-walled building (see images below), as well as purchasing furniture and the interior decorations that make it nice to live in. It is expensive, so people tend to do it in stages instead of all at once. (For an excellent discussion of an innovative solution to the same problem in Mexico, check out Part II, Section I, starting on pg. 147 of this book)

And CSJ does offer housing loans for this purpose, but the law requires that the potential house be posted as collateral. Easy, right? Anything but.

In order to post the house as collateral, one needs an architect’s official evaluation of the property that the borrower owns. Aside from the absurdity of expecting low-income borrowers to hire an architect, the concept of property value presents tricky challenges of its own.

Many of Kiva’s borrowers here belong to Ecuador’s large indigenous community, composed primarily of the Quechua (and Spanish) speaking modern day descendents of the Incas. By Ecuadorian law, they are allowed to own land collectively rather than individually, and most do. This means that they are unable to get the individual property deeds that underpin the official evaluations of land needed to get housing loans.

Those who are not indigenous are often living on land that is either rented or to which they have no specific deed or claim. This too makes evaluation impossible.

Student loans have curveballs of their own. They are exclusively for higher education, but most of Ecuador’s low-income borrowers’ kids could use the financial help just to get through high school.

So it makes sense that micro-loans end up in practice being used for both of these purposes because, though small, they conveniently skirt these obstacles. But what should our reaction be as lenders?

The answer is; a big thumbs up (Or perhaps one that inverts itself for just a second to hit Kiva’s “Lend” button, before returning to its upright and locked position).

Housing upgrades can make life a lot less precarious for borrowers. Cement is of course a lot less likely to burn, flood, or rot than wood. This can be an enormous benefit in the face of unpredictable events that seem to happen much more frequently in the precarious environments to which poorer members of Ecuadorian society are often relegated.

A cement house under construction in Ventanas Canton. A Kiva borrower with a contracting and soldering business works on this site.

And spending on schooling can have obvious benefits on the earning power of the children on which it is spent. But in a society where children are often expected to take much closer care of their parents in old age, the benefits of an educated daughter or son can often accrue directly (although, of course, with a lag) to the patient parent and borrower who funded the education in the first place. If the goal is give borrowers the tools to improve their quality of life, in addition to expanding their businesses, these expenditures have the potential to be overwhelmingly successful.

There are many roads that lead to the improved welfare of borrowers. So take the loan labels with a grain of salt, but trust borrowers to use your loaned funds to improve their lives in whatever way they choose.

Marcus Berkowitz is a first-time fellow with Cooperativa San José (CSJ) in the western Andes of Ecuador’s Bolívar province. Show support for CSJ´s hardworking rural borrowers by making a loan. Or get even more involved by joining CSJ’s lending team!

So, what does it take to be named the “Microentrepeneur of the Year” (MOTY) by Citi Bank? Citi Philippines, in collaboration with Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and Microfinance Council of Philippines (MCPI) just hosted their 9th year of this award. The collaborators said that they “recognize outstanding entrepreneurs with assets less than PHP 1 million, who have achieved remarkable growth as indicated by employment generation, profits, sales turnover and other enterprise performance measures.“

The field of microfinance has garnered criticisms in the recent years that have questioned the lack of employment creation and high interest rates.  Although transparency is a key component of keeping microfinance acountable, it is important to recognize the success stories created as a result of microfinance loans. With this said, it is amazing to stand back and see people being honored for the gains they have as a result of their collaboration with a microfinance organization. CCT is also very proud of Ms. Javines and her accomplishments. CCT has submitted borrowers stories for the last eight years and Ms. Javines is their first borrower to win this prestigious prize.

Citi provided awards to individuals for different categories and within the categories, to the different island regions of the Philippines (Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao).  The two categories of awards to honor different types of advancements in the industry. The award categories include the Masikap Awards and Maunlad awards. The Masikap award recognizes individuals who have set up businesses that are now providing a reliable source of income for their families. The Maunlad Awards recognize one person from each region who has grown their business and is now providing employment to others beyond their family circle. The prize that each person receives includes 100,000 Pisos, three-year health and life insurance coverage for all the winners, as well as a grant to attend an entrepreneurship management course in Bayan Academy, to ensure the sustainability of their businesses.

Nanay Javines got to travel outside of her province for the first time to visit Luzon for the Citi awards ceremony and for a reception at the CCT head office. Her eldest daughter and local branch staff loan officers also accompanied her. The CCT head office provided a lunch reception and gave Nanay Javines the opportunity to share her story of growth and success with her business of tuna packing.  Her business caters to two clients who send sashimi grade tuna to Japan, Canada and the US. She also makes a gel ice concoction to place inside of the fish to preserve its freshness for travel.

Nanay Andresa shared her personal remarks with the CCT staff. “I started doing business as a young woman. I got married at 15. My husband and I rented a house until we found a residential lot that we could pay for by installment.

I started out running a sari-sari store from my house. A friend told me about CCT’s programs. I became a CCT partner in the year 2000. I started out with a loan of P4,000. I completed payments on this loan, earning the trust of the loan officer and manager. In 2003, I built my house and started my tuna packing material business. In 2005, I bought two motorcycles, four low-cost subdivision lots and built a boarding house with eight rooms. The Lord’s goodness [to me] does not end there. Two of my children have graduated from college and have found jobs. I have two other children who are still in school. One of them is hearing-impaired.”

I pray God will keep blessing CCT, making it grow even more so that it will be able to help many other poor people like me. Our Lord is so good. One day is not long enough to speak of His goodness in my life.” (Original speech given in Tagalog, translation provided by CCT’s communications staff member, Myra Gaculais Del Rosario).

Nanay Javines stands in the company of other innovative microentrepreneurs in the Philippines. Other microentrepreneurs have businesses in industries that include the export of chicken lumpia (a traditional filipino dish), ready-to-wear clothing, herbal medicines and deep seas fishing. Some of those business gross between 2 and 4 million pisos a year now and employ up to 50 employees.

Microfinance has its criticisms, but stories like Nanay Javines show that access to capital via microfinance loans for small businesses can come together and work as they were intended. It can enable individuals to create income to help their families, take care of their necessities and begin to grow to a point where it creates jobs for other. A celebration is in order to honor those who are working hard to do things right to help themselves and others. Congrats Nanay Andresa on a job well done and an inspiring and ongoing life story.

Jill Hall is part of Kiva Fellows 16th class, working with Center for Community Transformation (CCT) in the Philippines. She is enjoying all the sights, sounds and food of her new home, the Philippines.  Please support CCT borrowers by reading about their stories and making a loan today. Be a part of the movement of Kiva and join CCT’s lending team or check out CCT’s partner page. Former posts written by Jill about her experiences in Manila and Center For Community Transformation (CCT) can be found at:

The Circle of Life; Filipino Style

Work is cancelled; Typhoon Day

Girlie’s Peanut Butter: Borrower Verification in the Philippines

Study Now Pay Now: Funding Higher Education in the Philippines

Part 1 of this series is available at here

Similar to Narayan Devi, Binu is a multi-faceted entrepreneur. A previous Kiva loan helped her fund a tailoring business where she was able to employ a few other people. As a single mother, she recently moved to another part of town to be closer to her brother. Upon moving she closed her tailoring shop. The distance made it expensive and difficult to travel and manage her shop. One option would have been to start another tailoring business in her new locality. As an entrepreneur who is constantly looking out for new opportunities and has a desire to learn new skills she decided to open a small canteen.

Binu infront of her canteen

Her new residence is located close to a hospital, and after an initial survey of the area she noticed that the hospital did not have a canteen to serve the medical students, doctors and patients. Drawing from her brother’s experience in the restaurant business Binu received a loan to kickstart her small canteen. In the hour that I visited there was a steady flow of students who came for a quick snack between classes, doctors between shifts, and patients. Serving to a medical community, Binu is especially aware of the need to provide safe, tasty, hygienic snacks.

Medical student books and snacks

Binu infront of the counter

As I became more aware of Binu’s business acumen and desire to take measured risks, I inquired about her entrepreneurial drive. As a single mother, Binu is motivated, knowing that her wellbeing depends on her handwork, and her desire to provide her son with a good education. In the past even she had even ventured into growing mushrooms to sell in the local market, and explored going into the wholesale clothing business. The support of BPW-Patan and Kiva have been instrumental in providing borrowers like Binu and Narayan Devi the necessary financial resources to become a multi-faceted entrepreneur and improve their livelihoods.

Binu with her son

Although, these borrowers provided me with a first hand experience on how micro-finance impacted peoples’ lives, the nagging question in my mind had always been: how can micro-finance be scaled? For example, the purchase of a cow to sell milk provides an opportunity to generate income, but the scalability of this endeavor is limited until a second cow is purchased, and so forth. The industrious and multi-faceted entrepreneurship of Binu and Narayan Devi provided another dimension to micro-finance. There were borrowers who were actively taking measured risks and starting new micro-ventures. A single activity might not be scalable; but the desire and agility to transition and supplement one’s activity definitely yields the opportunity for greater returns.

Abhinab Basnyat is currently serving as a  Kiva Fellow in Nepal with BPW-Patan. To learn more about BPW-Patan go to their Field Partner Page on the Kiva website. Check out the BPW Patan Lending Team and consider making a loan to a woman entrepreneur from Nepal.

I had always been fascinated by the textbook stories in micro-finance: loans to buy cattle or to start a small tea-shop that supported income generating activities and had a tangible impact on people’s lives. When I met Kiva borrowers, Narayan Devi and Binu, and heard their stories I suddenly had the visceral confirmation that had been amiss in textbooks. Yes, micro-finance loans played an influential role to uplift livelihoods. But more importantly, it was the borrowers’ multi-faceted entrepreneurship that magnified the impact of micro-finance.

A Kiva loan helped Naryan Devi, a mother of two, buy supplies for her store, which she runs with her husband. Her small shop while profitable to repay her loans is not enough to sustain her family and send her children to school. Narayan Devi is a multi-faceted entrepreneur who is always looking to learn new skills and apply her business acumen to new opportunities.

Narayan Devi at store with her husband

Two years ago Narayan Devi took a training on making a traditional Nepal sweet – pustakari  that is made up of khoa (a cheese like milk based product), peanut powder, sugar.

Narayan Devi making pustakari

She spent her spare time during the past six months experimenting and perfecting the sweet making process. For the last two months she has been producing batches enough to sell in her shop and the surrounding area. Sale of pustakaris have supplemented Narayan Devi’s income.

Packaged pustakari for sale

Unfortunately, some of the major sweet producers in the the Nepali were recently found to be producing sub-standard pustakaris. This resulted in an overall drop in demand for these sweets. In response, farmers in the upstream market have stopped converting their milk to khoa – an essential ingredient in the sweet making process. Since, Narayan Devi caters to her local market people still trust and purchase her sweets; however, she is facing difficulty in procuring the raw materials. Narayan Devi is hopeful that her small home enterprise will not be shuttered, and consumers will continue to love the traditional Nepali sweet.

As a multi-faceted entrepreneur, along with her shop and sweet making enterprise, Narayan Devi is an experienced carpet weaver. She learned this craft as a kid working during the school holidays, and occasionally takes on weaving projects for extra income.

Abhinab Basnyat is currently serving as a  Kiva Fellow in Nepal with BPW-Patan. To learn more about BPW-Patan go to their Field Partner Page on the Kiva website. Check out the BPW Patan Lending Team and consider making a loan to a woman entrepreneur from Nepal.

I was excited to find out when I arrived at here that CCT that they had just rolled out a new education loan product in June of 2011. It was a pleasure to sit down with Maricar Santiago, CCT with the Visions of Hope division, to discuss the previously mentioned issues as well as to learn the details of the “Study Now, Pay Now” education loan product.

How do you identify the education loan borrowers? CCT identifies loan recipients in areas where their MFI branches are operating. The first recipients were among current coop members with ability to pay, existing business loan, and from communities in which they serve. The loans were initially announced to staff of MFI and then they would announce it at their borrower weekly fellowship meetings. They were then announced to existing borrowers and community leaders. CCT took referrals from them and then would go to the house of referral to discuss program and assess family.

How do you determine the repayment schedules? Repayment is bi-monthly to coincide with parent’s bi-monthly earnings

Does the loan depend on what type of program the student is attending? Yes, CCT currently limits the loan to courses that can assist in development so in the case of a difficult job market, CCT can hire them. Examples of these courses are social workers, accountants, cooperative/microfinance development, teachers, and 4 year Information Technology programs.

Does this depend on the client’s expected salary? CCT looks into the income and cash flow of the family.  They use this as the basis for the amount of the loan that the student can borrow, otherwise CCT is looking more at the potential to be employed. To the students with the parents as co-borrowers.

Do you offer other services with your higher education loans, such as career advising or job placement? They offer job placement at CCT, leadership training, and provide peer counseling.

Do you lend more for technical/vocational schools or colleges/universities? Their loans are currently for just four-year university students.

Do you have data on the demand for higher education loans, both at your organization and the country at large? Higher education exists in the Philippines. Foundations are providing scholarships and loans but they are competitive and difficult to attain. The government has a Study Now Pay Later programs. CCT chose to implement a Study Now and Pay Now program. Their long-term goal is to have a Study Now, Work Now program.

Do you do any other types of evaluation or follow-up for higher ed. loans (i.e. monitoring job placement)? CCT plans to do follow-up but since the program is brand new, they have not done any follow-up yet.  CCT is not only planning to evaluate job placement but also improved quality of life for the family.

What is the market for higher education and higher education student lending in your country? What are the future projections? The education system in the Philippines is a big challenge. There is a big discrepancy between the entry/exit rates of high school and college rates. Poverty is large in Philippines, so the correlation between educational progress and employment is low. CCT is looking forward to making university education a movement for Filipino youth in the poorer sector. They want to see a higher and longer lasting impact for students, families and the entire poverty sector.

What type of government support, if any, exists for higher education in your country?  The government has “Study Now and Pay Later” programs of government and NGO’s have educational assistance programs.

Does the government make or subsidize higher education student loans?The public universities are intended to make college education more accessible to the poor but often times the poorer communities do not have the resources to educate their youth to the level that will allow them to pass the entrance exams to the public universities.

What is your future plans for higher education loans? CCT would like to tie it into their whole program for children and youth, introduce entrepreneurship, leadership, savings, and volunteer work in the community. Prepare the students with the skills early to be good borrowers and MFI member entrepreneurs.

One thought that Maricar kept repeating to me was CCT’s mission to transform communities and how this education loan was one more step in diversifying services to the communities CCT serves. There are many questions about the success of the education loan, but so many other factors are at stake if they do succeed. Shah mentioned in the same Huffington Post article, “In the countries that Kiva.org serves, a one year certificate in accounting can increase a person’s income 200 to 300 percent”.  This is a potential outcome well worth investing in as different organizations begin to see how to appropriately integrate this type of product into their educational infrastracutre.  In a country where it is estimated that 33% of the population lives below the povery line and only 3% of the GDP is spent on education, these loans may make the difference in providing opportunites for students that might not other wise have been able to reach their goal of higher education.

CCT does not currently have education loans funding on Kiva but CCT is committed to utilizing these loans for the family members of their current partners. Please take a look at the stories of CCT borrowers in the Philippines and be a part of helping CCT transform communities through the change in their partners lives.

Jill Hall is part of Kiva Fellows 16th class, working with Center for Community Transformation (CCT) in the Philippines. She is very much enjoying all the sights, sounds and food of her new home, the Philippines.  Please support CCT borrowers by reading about their stories and making a loan today. Be a part of the movement of Kiva and join CCT’s lending team or check out CCT’s partner page. Former posts written by Jill about her experiences in Manila and Center For Community Transformation (CCT) can be found at:

The Circle of Life; Filipino Style

Work is cancelled; Typhoon Day

Girlie’s Peanut Butter: Borrower Verification in the Philippines

There are different ways you can view what the BV does but I have enjoyed every one of my visits to borrowers because it allows me to experience the very reason I became a Kiva lender and now, a Kiva Fellow; it’s all about the people we see on the profiles. (For a great explanation on this “Social Return”, see KF16 Laurie Young’s post).

This day’s journey is particularly exciting because the reward at the end of the two-hour bus side in Metro Manila traffic, is Caloocan City, a place where nature begins to meet houses and instead of high rises and smog you plunge in to lush green hills and palm trees.

Filipino Jeepney

I had already established a meeting point with Branch officers at a local mall so they could escort me into the labyrinthine communities where CCT’s partner’s live, even further north of the city. Most commutes here involved a crammed jeepney, a sort of jump on/off minibus.

I was pretty when excited when the local branch staff showed up with motorcycles to take us to our next destination. It would be my first time riding them and exposure to the open air was just the right remedy for the thick air.

Motor cycle commute

The man on the front of the motorcycle is Kuya (term of older brother) Ronnie is the team servant (a.k.a regional manager) for the Caloocan City branches. For each of the MFI’s that Kiva works with, there is usually an army of people behind the scenes meeting with the borrowers, collecting information, writing stories, uploading profiles and corresponding with the Kiva Coordinator. (Here is more info on the job of a KC).

Kuya Ronnie corresponded with his branch leaders to help me set up the appointments to meet with my borrowers. The branch leaders are needed to navigate the cryptic mazes of alleys leading to the borrower’s home and businesses.

CCT's Borrower's Broom Product

On most our walks we encountered the business of some of CCT’s other borrowers like this production of brooms to be sold at a later date.

In addition to seeing CCT borrower’s businesses, we ran into other CCT borrowers who in true Filipino hospitality, invited us in to have lunch before our borrower visit.  CCT pride’s itself on its development of Fellowship groups which focus on community-building and leadership development in addition to the weekly repayment appointments.

While in the field CCT borrowers invited us in for lunch

One of our BV visits in Caloocan was to a Peanut Butter Vendor named Girlie. I went through the list of BV items; Name, Passbook verification of dates, reason for loan and visual verification of loan use. Girlie was able to check out on my list.  I asked Girlie to share more of her story with me and she excitedly shared the story of her business with me. Before I left, I asked Girlie to answer one more question for me, “What are your hopes and dreams for your business and personal life?”.

Girlie was quick to answer and she shared that her hope is to continue to build her business and become a distributor to local groceries stores. She hopes to make enough income to quit her two other jobs and make peanut butter full-time. We laughed about how she already had the perfect name for her product, “Girlie’s Peanut Butter”.

Prior to the new pots, Girlie had to borrower a neighbor's supplies. She can now increase production.

In KF 16′s Eric Rindal’s last post he talked about “Why small business?.” He suggested the answer was the flexibility and ingenuity of small business and how they offer endless benefits in economies where unemployment is high and opportunities limited. Girlie already works 48 hours per week at a local store. In my experience in the Philippines, hours of overtime are often completed at work without pay and without complaint. If complaint occurs, there are 20 other people who are lined up and ready to take your job. An entrepreneurial effort by an individual allows borrowers the flexibility to work towards their goals and develop their own businesses.

Kiva states on its website that they do what they do because, “We envision a world where all people – even in the most remote areas of the globe – hold the power to create opportunity for themselves and others. We believe providing safe, affordable access to capital to those in need helps people create better lives for themselves and their families.”  Girlie is just one example of the people who CCT and kiva.org are trying to connect to the opportunity for a better future through access to capital.  Be a part of a creating opportunity for someone like Girlie.

Peanut Butter taste test

Jill Hall is part of Kiva Fellows 16th class, working with Center for Community Transformation (CCT) in the Philippines. She is very much enjoying all the sights, sounds and food of her new home, the Philippines.  Please support CCT borrowers by reading about their stories and making a loan today. Be a part of the movement of Kiva and join CCT’s lending team or check out CCT’s partner page. 

Imagine yourself stepping outside of your tomato-colored house and onto a peaceful street, steeply hung over a mid-sized Ecuadorian town nestled in a lush valley. It’s nearly silent as you walk to the bus stop. You can see the center of town bustling below you. The giant Mt. Chimborazo in the distance and the smaller range just in front of it block the harshness of the early morning sun, casting a soft light on the quiet countryside.

This peace lasts no more than a couple of minutes before it is loudly shattered by the shouting of the fare official of the bright red bus screaming towards you with no intention to stop, loudly blaring from its many loudspeakers the same song as yesterday (indeed, as every day). So it begins!

“Get on! Get on! Go, go, STEP ON IT!!” shouts the official, pulling you forcibly onto the steps as you grab the bars in front of the permanently open door on the still-moving bus. If you’re lucky, you yank yourself inside before a branch from a plant sticking out of the hillside smacks you in the head.

If you click this photo and enlarge it, you can almost get a sense of the amount of people jammed in there.

Once precariously perched on the steps inside the bus, you find yourself face-to-face with (or in my case, at a modest 5′ 9″, looming over) a sardine-style mass of upwards of 100 school children, uniformed workers, and assorted others who have been piled into a bus built for perhaps 50. Usually you end up crunched in a sort of awkward bear hug with whomever was unfortunate enough to have been jammed in next to the giant, as you vainly attempt to grab hold of anything solid.

If you’re into that, it’s actually pretty fun. And definitely not boring.

If not… well, it’s a little sweaty.

As you may have divined from this description (and from my prior post, “Motorcycle Madness”), one’s ability to thrive in Ecuadorian society is directly correlated to one’s level of comfort with embracing complete strangers in public places on a regular basis. That and trying to fully absorb the beauty of, while simultaneously attempting to completely ignore, one’s surroundings while on moving vehicles.

All exaggeration aside, this is a fairly accurate picture of what rural micro-borrowers from Cooperativa San Jose would have to go through every time they had to make a payment. That’s not to mention the cost of the bus fare or the time it takes out of their day, which is considerable since many of them come from the distant countryside and have limited incomes.

I say would have to go through, because luckily part of the “Ventanillas Rurales” (Window to the Countryside) program, which your Kiva loans support, brings the bank to the borrower so they don’t have to brave the bus. Instead of asking these faraway borrowers to make the long trip to the city, loan officers go out to each group regularly to collect repayments and savings deposits, and to check in on how the loan has affected the community.

Financial room service, if you will.

There are limits, of course. Loan officers don’t always make it to every meeting, meaning that at least one person from the group’s leadership does have to weather the long journey occasionally. And if the borrowers want or need to make transactions which are unrelated to the loan, or which have to take place at a time other than the group meetings, they are usually out of luck; they end up jammed in next to me or someone else on the morning bus.

But overall, the Ventanillas Rurales program does a great job of keeping itself convenient for its borrowers, by coming to their communities and in countless other ways. Stay tuned for a future blog post about a transformative new technology that CSJ is about to launch to eliminate perhaps all of the aforementioned limits; just part of its commitment to ‘embrace’ easy-to-use financial services for all of its members, near or far. This unflinching commitment is the principal reason why Cooperativa San Jose rocks at meeting the needs of its most distant rural members. Keep lending to them!

Now more bus music for your listening pleasure.

Disclaimer; none of this music is technically Ecuadorian. All these songs, though, apparently can be found on the top 10 list of the average Ecuadorian bus driver.

Marcus Berkowitz is a first-time fellow with Cooperativa San José (CSJ) in the western Andes of Ecuador’s Bolívar province. Show support for CSJ´s hardworking rural borrowers by making a loan. Or get even more involved byjoining CSJ’s lending team!

The view from my window. Manila Bay is typically completely stagnant water which is why the waves crashing over the break wall were alarming.

This was the text message I received at 6:24 am on Tuesday, September27th, 2011. I had already been up about an hour due to the sleepy realization that my room was distinctly more humid than my wonderful air conditioner allows for during my hours of sleep.  Puzzled, I got out of bed to turn on my lights and identify the problem but the lights did not turn on. This information, in combination with a few other factors, helped me put the pieces of the puzzle together.  There was heavy rain as I fell asleep, there were screaming winds outside my window and small puddles on the floor of my apartment.  Monday’s rumors were true, Typhoon Pedring (international name Nesat) had come to visit Manila and the island of Luzon.

I had already seen what a few hours of rain in Manila could do to the streets and traffic here, so needless to say I was relieved when I got the text message cancelling work. Just the day before, a colleague had been telling me how his normal two hour commute (due to traffic and not physical distance) had become four hours due a minor rain shower, Monday morning. Knowing this, I could only imagine what havoc a typhoon could bring to the arteries and veins that feed into the heart of Manila and it’s surrounding areas.

So what does one do with a “Typhoon Day” from work? Having had snow days growing up with cold and snowy winters in Wisconsin (USA), I reviewed the activities I did then. Sledding? No, there were floods outside. Drink hot chocolate? No, I had no heat or power. Watch movies or work on Kiva tasks? No, my computer was dead and the Internet lab has no power.  Obviously, I was new at this typhoon thing and the day unfolded  with the following activities: sleeping, sopping up flooding in my 34^th story apartment, releasing the foot of water on my balcony over the edge, walking the 34 flights of stairs twice to retrieve non-refrigerated food from the candlelit 7 11, and reading an entire 100 page book.  At one point I did leave the building to attempt an escape to Starbucks two blocks away but quickly realized that between the thigh high flooding and massive winds, that  a.Starbucks was probably closed, like all other establishments for blocks and b. this escape plan had some major flaws like the road being covered in water up to my hips.

The shallow end of the flooding on my street

The exciting conclusion to my story with the typhoon happened late on Tuesday night. Not only had the strong winds and rain subsided, but the power came back on. I had also managed to drain most of the water out of my apartment and I was reconnected to the world via the Internet.  The only problem is that with all natural disasters, the story does not end there for a large portion of the people of Luzon. I came to the office on Wednesday to discover much of the city was still without power, much of the large street dwelling population here had been displaced to aid centers and that 400 of CCT’s borrowers had suffered great damage or loss to their homes and businesses. (For more information on the typhoon, you can check out this article from BBC News.)

So with this, or any natural disaster, what is the role of microfinance or our local NGO’s or MFI’s?  My first hand experience that I can share with you is through the benefits that I have seen through my placement at CCT.  Microfinance institutions have a unique relationship as they have access to borrowers in low income and remote areas. As the Philippines is a highly developed microfinance market, many of the MFI’s have begun to offer comprehensive services to their borrowers that can include aid and relief during natural disasters.  Also CCT’s portfolio includes borrowers with small businesses and agricultural business, which could be severely affected by the typhoon if their inventory was washed away, or crops destroyed. Already, two days later, I just received a report on the status of CCT’s partners and the ways in which those affected received aid.  CCT staff was ready and on call to assist their region of borrowers.  The following quote was from a 2010 report given by CCT President, Ruth Callanta about their response and plan for other disasters.

“D. Responding to Disasters.During Typhoon Ondoy, CCT set in motion a disaster response effort that included relief, medical missions, and rehabilitation of the shelter and businesses of affected community partners and staff. This response, begun within 24 hours of the flood’s arrival, was possible because of a ready infrastructure of staff and volunteers at the community, barangay, municipal, provincial, regional, andnational levels.”

The small business owners in the area that I like have appeared to bounce back fairly quickly as the small pedi-cab (bicycle cabs) are transporting people through puddles and the street food cellars were out as soon as the flooding had diminished.  Others, though, will need to take more time to recover as homes and business were lost. Luckily CCT is there to help them identify their losses and get reconnected to the services to help them recover.

Pedi-cab driver offering his services during the typhoon. The street was so flooded he had to walk the cab through the flooding.

This week Kiva started sharing the stories of lenders worldwide who talk about “Why I Kiva”. As I have listened to the stories of Kiva borrowers in the field and now heard from numerous Kiva lenders about why they are involved with Kiva. I have also been reflecting on the same question and in light of the events of this week, I just realized how much I like being a part of the movement to level the playing field. When a tornado, snowstorm, or flood hits us in the developed world, we do not worry if our money is safe in our savings or if our bank will provide us access to the capital to work on restoring our business or livelihoods.  We also assume that we have the right to services that will come for us, if the community is destroyed and we are not safe.  It is inspiring to be on the ground working with an organization that is providing capital and resources to the local microfinance institutions who have relationships established with these borrowers as well as the access to assist them through these uncontrollable disasters. Join us in this movement and share with us why you Kiva?.

Jill Hall is part of Kiva Fellows 16th class, working with Center for Community Transformation (CCT) in the Philippines.  Please support CCT borrowers by reading about their stories and making a loan today. Be a part of the movement of Kiva and join CCT’s lending team.

“Do you know how to ride a motorcycle?” asked the stranger seated directly in front of me, his voice muffled by his helmet.

I thought it a little late to ask, seeing as I was currently gripping his belly from behind as we flew, several mph faster than strict necessity would dictate, around a precipitously tight corner on the edge of the western cordillera of the Andes.

“No,” I said, “I’m supposed to put my hands over your eyes, right?”

Luckily he didn’t hear me. Or at least was kind enough to pretend not to.

It was from these inauspicious beginnings that I got to know Danny Benitez, Loan Officer from the San Miguel branch of the Cooperativa San José, with whom I have worked as a Kiva Fellow for the last few weeks.

"Papa" Chimborazo, Ecuador's tallest mountain. Photo taken on the dusty road to my first borrower visit.

Danny loves his motorcycle. He broke a couple of spokes a week or so ago, and would pretty much only drive his car until he got the moto fixed. I’m convinced he does his job half because he gets to ride so often out in his breathtaking countryside (see above) as he delivers loans, writes drafts for Kiva profiles, collects repayments, and keeps up with his clients for Kiva Journals. But it’s not easy. I’ve only ridden with him in the dry season but from what I can tell, when the rainy season starts in the next couple of weeks  we’ll both look a lot worse than this;

And this is still the dry season...

To say it on this blog is to preach to the choir, but these folks are the true foot soldiers of Kiva. While we fellows (mostly) go back to our comfy homelands after a few months, these guys and ladies are out there every day muddying their motorcycles for microfinance. They are paid to do a specific job, of course, so they have little sense of the absurd borderline heroism we bestow upon them, but they nonetheless deserve our sincerest props.

I can’t generalize across Kiva’s field partners, but the Loan Officers here at the Cooperativa San José certainly share some common characteristics. They are highly social and well-liked within the institution and among their clients, but are also unfazed by spending hours at a time alone on the well-worn steeds CSJ provides for them. They’re occasionally a hair on the disorganized side, but that’s why they have an official Coordinator here, Juan Carlos, who makes sure essential tasks get taken care of, both for Kiva and otherwise. He has been one of my primary contacts here, and speaks fondly of his time as a regular Loan Officer when he could “be out there talking to people instead of sitting at the computer”. It is a common sentiment among them. Almost everyone in management at the branch where Danny works was once a regular Loan Officer. During the rainy season it is helpful that management, as Juan Carlos likes to say, “knows what it means to get wet out there”.

That’s pretty much all I’ve got… hats off to our trusty Loan Officers! And join the lending team for CSJ! Also, happy birthday Mom and Hannah! All translations in this post are my own. I’ll leave you with some shots of sights I’ve encountered on motorcycle (and car and bus) journeys around Bolívar and Tungurahua States, in Central Ecuador…

"Mama" Tungurahua, an active nearby volcano, looms over a construction site.

Beautiful plaza, Saturday market, and church in Baños, just below Tungurahua volcano.

Marcus Berkowitz is a first-time fellow with Cooperativa San José (CSJ) in the western Andes of Ecuador’s Bolívar province. Join CSJ’s lending team!

“You are lucky,” my taxi driver tells me. “You have arrived in the best time in Georgia!”

Anyone familiar with Samuel Coleridge’s Rhyme Of The Ancient Mariner?  In particular the famous lines:

Water, water, everywhere, and all the boards did shrink
Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink

For some reason the memory of this poem from school days long gone was resurrected during my first taste of life here in Cotonou. The difference is that here I found myself replacing “water” with “money” as the central theme.

Let me explain. I signed up to be a Kiva Fellow with certain preconceptions about the environments I might be working in: Basic, struggling, deprived, and definitely low economic activity. Not only that, but there would be hundreds (if not thousands!) of Beninese lining the streets clamouring for some capital to start their businesses.

Money, Money, Everywhere

Well, I was in for a shock. You see here in Cotonou, Benin, entrepreneurial activity is RIFE. I mean it’s everywhere – in fact you can get anything, anywhere, anytime. Every street is lined with row after row of street stalls selling food, petrol, electronics, car parts, clothes, furniture, and so on and so on (see photos). The entrepreneurial drive is as inspiring as it is astonishing.

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And so it was that, clinging desperately to the back of a moto taxi dodging its way to work on my first day, two thoughts struck me:

1. Great, there’s an economy up and coming, this really is encouraging
2. But hold on, in a country with such an active micro-enterprise economy, where is the need for Kiva funding? Aren’t our borrowers trying to help the poor?

Well, as I sit here at ALIDe (Kiva’s partner MFI here in Benin) three weeks later I begin to glean some understanding. While accompanying loan officers to visit their clients a whole new side of the city was revealed to me – Well off the beaten economic track, marginalised communities reveal themselves in all their splendid poverty.

And Not A Drop To Drink

We all know these communities since they exist the world over, particularly in major cities: pockets of population struggling for inclusion on the economic ladder. Back home in the UK these certainly exist but we are fortunate to have a social welfare system in place to provide support and opportunities to these, even if it is sometimes found wanting. However in a place where the baseline wealth is already low (Benin ranks 134 out of 169 in the UN Human Development Index, just behind Yemen), a struggling community faces very real dangers on a daily basis, with no place to turn for help.

Where social welfare cannot provide for the needs of the most marginalised, the theory goes that there is hope in self-improvement through economic activity and income – my understanding of the American Dream.

As noble as this theory is, the communities I have visited have no such chance at participation. The barriers to entry to enterprise, although small in dollar value, are monumental to a family barely able to feed itself every day.

Rewriting The Story

A Kiva microloan enables this breakthrough. With mechanisms relying on social collateral rather than material, these people are able to join the thriving economic activity and have a chance to pull themselves out the poverty trap.

In the Ancient Mariner, the ship’s crew dies of thirst despite the abundance of water around them.

Let us hope that microcredit can provide much needed cash to the marginalised communities around the world and stop the needless deaths of the poor, despite the abundance of money around them.

…“Why am I doing this?”

Let me introduce you to the Kiva Fellows Phenomenon.

• 2 months ago I was sitting in an office in London’s West End in highly regarded and well paid job.
• One month ago I sat at Kiva HQ in San Francisco surrounded by 19 talented, driven, and fascinating people, all about to be scattered across the world in the latest exodus of Kiva Fellows.
• Yesterday I travelled through heat and dust to the slums of Cotonou, Benin, to see a group of potential borrowers and talk to them about Kiva.

The latest Kiva Fellows, ready to scatter

All across the world, in some of the poorest places that exist, our network of fellows has left behind friends, family, and all the conveniences we take for granted in the west. They are having very similar conversations with potential borrowers in their countries right now.

And yet we choose to do it. This is the Fellows Phenomenon. 

“No. Really. Why am I doing this?!”

The answer is, of course, Kiva. Or rather, what Kiva does, and what it represents.

Our unifying belief?

That responsible microfinance can empower the poor…

…to help themselves to a better quality of life…

…by actively participating in their economy.

And no-one does responsible microfinance like Kiva.

Kiva uses field partners (local microfinance institutions or MFI) to distribute loans to entrepreneurs across the world. We fellows assist these field partners in two principle ways:

1. Better to run their operations, ensuring they can spread their scarce funds as far as possible to help the most out of reach entrepreneurs get access to credit.
2. To ensure transparency and social responsibility it their actions, so that they may shape a sustainable and positive microfinance industry in their countries.

A brighter future

By carrying out these tasks, I am helping Kiva’s field partner in Benin (an MFI called ALIDé) build the country’s economy from the very bottom. I think this is worthwhile enough to abandon my comfortable life for at least the next four months. So do nineteen other fellows across the world right now. So have nearly 350 other fellows since the programme started four years ago.

There are many ways to see how powerful a force against poverty Kiva is. The Fellows Phenomenon is only one of these. I’m not asking everyone to take the extreme steps we have taken, but I would ask you to consider where your money goes and what it does.

And whether just $25 of that could be loaned to a Kiva entrepreneur today.

See entrepreneurs on Kiva today

Read more about Kiva Fellows Programme

Find out more about how Kiva uses field partners across the world

Find out more about my field partner ALIDé

Gareth Davies is a newly arrived Kiva Fellow in Benin, West Africa. The next four months will see him work alongside ALIDé to spread their Kiva operations in marginalised communities across the country.



My heart fell when I opened up the e mail, ‘Congratulations…….. you’re going to Beirut’.  I hold my hands up, my first thought was warzone.  A quick scan of the UK Foreign Office website confirmed my fears, general risk of terrorism, violent clashes in previous months, not somewhere I was in a hurry to leave the UK for.  Fortunately I didn’t send an immediate ‘thanks but no thanks’ e mail.  I told a friend expecting him to laugh and his response was ‘awesome’, another friend said she had always wanted to visit. With such a positive response from others maybe I was missing something and Lebanon deserved some research and I am glad I did. 

Place d’Etoile

First stop the trusty Lonely Planet: the traveller’s bible.  Reading through it I became more and more excited, amazing food, wild nightlife, beaches, ancient ruins, ski resorts, vineyards where’s the catch?  An incredibly precarious political system which balances 18 different religions and numerous different agendas.   Add into the mix that it lies in the heart of the Middle East, with amongst others; Israel, Syria, Iran, Iraq as its neighbours you start to see why it has been a volatile destination.  Balancing the pros and the cons I became enthused, emailed Kiva HQ to say I was in and here I am. 

South East Asia has a legendary reputation for friendliness but this is nothing in comparison to the Lebanese.  Every single person who I have met; from taxi drivers, work colleagues, to people on the street and even soldiers have been warm, helpful and so welcoming that I am seriously considering making Lebanon my home.  

What’s most incredible is that given Beirut’s history of civil wars, it is such a beautiful city.  The people are incredibly resilient. A lot of the city has been rebuilt, and whilst there are some buildings with bullet holes, these are rapidly being replaced by modern office and apartment blocks.  The Downtown area has been expansively redeveloped and every major international designer has a boutique here.   Restaurants Downtown have valet parking with fleets of Ferraris, Aston Martins and Range Rovers parked outside.  Not everyone in Lebanon is a millionaire but those who aren’t are working really hard trying to become one.

The economy was relatively stable throughout the period of civil war, thanks largely to the strict financial regulations which were and continue to be in place.  My partner MFI has a repayment rate which verge on 100% something unheard of in the western world.

I am working with ACSI (CHF International) a pilot field partner for Kiva, which has its operational centre in Beirut, but all of the branches and borrowers are based in Iraq. In each Field Partner there is a Kiva Co-ordinator who is responsible for the MFI’s interaction with Kiva.  I am very fortunate that my co-ordinator is a fantastic, if very busy person.  My aim is to take ACSI CHF International from pilot to active partner as quickly as possible.

A large part of my role is familiarising the Field Partner with the Kiva website, and the way in which Kiva works.  And today uploading loan profiles, we had a significant breakthrough.  Looking at the first loans which were posted a couple of weeks ago, I showed her the lenders.  She was blown away that 99 different people had all contributed to make one loan to a borrower in Iraq.

What I wasn’t expecting was what came next; she said that she would like to make a loan herself. Not only does she want to work with Kiva, but she wants to be a part of it herself. Going through the lender profiles, they became real life people in places all across the world, helping her borrowers to expand their businesses.  And she would like in turn to help people in other countries too.

Having made a breakthrough we just have to finish off typing the loan profiles and look forward to seeing where the next lenders come from.

Caroline Pattinson is a Kiva Fellow in KF13, working with ACSI, CHF International in Beirut Lebanon

As part of an ambitious effort aimed at the latter group, CCT has developed the “Kaibigan Village” (Kaibigan meaning friend in Tagalog), a small, self-sustaining village three hours outside Manila, that I was lucky enough to visit.  The village is inhabited by six families, all of whom used to be “street dwellers,” that work on both communal projects, such as pig and goat raising, as well as individual projects, including growing vegetables and raising chickens.  A couple of CCT staff live in the village to help coordinate fellowship meetings, provide security etc., however, the village is largely run by its citizens.  Emotional testimonials provided by two Kaibigans who spoke to the group as I sat down for its first ever “corporate worship,” made the transformative value of the program clear.  Whether this is a program that can be viably scaled up to reach more groups is unknown, though the continuous generosity of donors suggests there is hope: another village is under construction a few miles down the road.

I also ventured to the “Kaibigan Community Center” in Pasay City, about twenty minutes south of central Manila, to attend the official opening of a new clean water station developed with sponsorship from several companies and development organizations.  The purification system uses a filtering system and UV rays to kill bacteria in the water.  I had a newly bottled liter of the purified water and it was, though perhaps an odd choice of words given the quintessentially tasteless subject, delicious, particularly in the heat of the one o-clock sun.  The ceremony ended with a basketball game featuring players from the areas around two of CCTs water stations.  Responsible microfinance organizations know that microfinance is not a development panacea, but it is refreshing to observe one that acts on this insight.

Leadership gurus often warn about creating excessively lofty goals for organizations, arguing that any disconnect between pragmatism and stated objectives will demoralize staff.  While CCT’s objectives are certainly lofty, they instead seem to stoke a tenacious creativity exemplified in projects like the Kaibigan Village and water station that supplement the organization’s microfinance work.  Here’s to their continued success.

by Nick Whalley, KF12, Philippines

Well, almost 100 days. A Kiva Fellowship lasts three months so my work with Esperanza International in the Dominican Republic and Haiti has lasted some 90 days. And so has my hands-on experience with micro-finance.

As a PhD student of Hispanic literature (at Boston University), it’s been quite an experience going from reading about the lives of others, like those described by Junot Diaz and Edwidge Danticat, to witnessing them first-hand on this historic island. During my Fellowship I have had the unique opportunity to meet some truly courageous and inspiring women. Here are those who moved me most.

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Claribel, Mujeres Luchadoras Group

This borrower lives in a small community some 30 km outside of the city of Puerto Plata, on the northern coast of the country, known for its all-inclusive resorts and white-sand beached. But the typical life for the local population does not involve napping under a palm tree.

Like others in her group, Claribel makes her living from a modest small-scale business for which she has taken out a few loans with Esperanza International. These have been used to develop her household-cleaning products business which she runs out of her home. The loans allow her to purchase the necessary products (laundry detergent, chlorine, cleaning sprays and pastes, sponges, etc.) and sell them to clients in the surrounding communities.

Claribel stands out among other borrowers: she is a keen businesswoman with clearly-defined business objectives, strategies and personal goals. And she’s a single mother. Over the last three years she has been able to generate profits, which she has been saving for a very specific purpose – the construction of her own home. This is her future goal: to move out of her mother’s house in which she currently occupies one room shared with her two children (10 and 6). She told me she moved back to the countryside where she grew up specifically for this reason. By not paying rent and becoming an entrepreneur, in the near future, she hopes to provide a better living environment for her children. After starting up with buying and selling bedding, she switched to cleaning products upon realizing it is more profitable. She’s been successfully developing her small business ever since, and slowly filling up her mother’s yard with bricks and cement bags.

Jaquelin, Mujeres en Accion Group

Jaquelin’s story is unique but also representative of her community, the millions of Haitian immigrants residing in the Dominican Republic.

This borrower is a young mother of a one year-old boy. She moved to the Spanish-speaking part of Hispaniola about a year ago and she makes her living in a poor urban neighborhood by selling clothes in her community. Jaquelin spreads out her products (undergarments, blouses, jeans, etc.) on the doorsteps of her home and on the sidewalks of her community. She shares her modest wooden home with her husband, a construction worker. Like many Haitian males who form the multifarious unskilled labor force of the Dominican Republic, Jacquelin’s husband often finds himself unemployed when demands for basic services is low. This is when his wife’s sales business becomes the only source of income.

But things can get worse: your family members can die in a deadly earthquake. This is what happened to Jacquelin in January. She put her business on hold and made the trip to Port-au-Prince to find out the fate of the family she left behind … on foot! Transport being scarce at that time and expensive, Jacquelin walked for three days (along with others, having left her baby in the care of her husband and neighbors). She stayed a week, buried some of her relatives and managed to find other ones, and then made the same trip back … also on foot.

Naturally, her business was affected. The MFI suspended loan payments for a few weeks after the earthquake but, just like many other of her group members, Jacquelin has been struggling to make ends meet. She is barely getting by, the clothing business made possible via the Esperanza loan being her family’s only source of income until construction business picks up.  But Jacquelin remains positive, saying that things can only get better.

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These are but two of the many stories of challenges and the courage to overcome them that I have had the opportunity to witness during my time as Kiva Fellow at Esperanza International. Two other highlights of my three months here include a trip to the Haiti branch and the ubiquitous singing-prayers at repayment meetings. See for yourself.

Although my time in Haiti and the Dominican Republic with the wondrous real lives changed by micro-credit is up, and although it’s time to get back to the fictional lives depicted in the books I read as a student of literature, my involvement in micro-finance is not over. As I hope is the case with you. Please continue to support small-scale entrepreneurs on the Hispaniola Island by lending to Esperanza International, a partner of Hope International.

Saludos and adios from Magdalena, a Kiva Fellow on the Hispaniola Island. Kiva Love and … keep lending!

Claude Mansell, KF10, Rwanda

Sixteen years after the genocide it is time to reflect on where the country stands in its pursuit to stability and offering new perspectives to the population. Having been a Kiva Fellow in Rwanda for the last 4 months, I would love to share some personal observations with you.

My main observation is that there are signs of hope all over the country. Opposite the office of Vision Finance, Kiva’s first microfinance partner in Rwanda, is this tiny restaurant called Hope 2020. Its 20 square meter (200 square foot) space tends to be crowded with workers stopping for a simple meal or a tea before continuing their day.

"Hope 2020", Restaurant

I asked the young owner why he gave the place this name. His answer: “By then my son will be 18, and I hope he will then enter University, unlike me”.  Education is hot in Rwanda. The first 9 years of education are paid for by the government; the first 6 school years are attended in village schools, after which the pupils go to a secondary school elsewhere in the country for at least three years. Their primary school grades determine to which secondary school they are admitted.

Much effort is put into increasing the number of pupils that go to university after their secondary school. In particular, technical studies are promoted.

Education is regarded and treated as the motor of economic development of the country. Currently, the economy is largely dependent on the productivity of the agriculture sector. In 2009 Rwanda’s GDP increased by 5%, mainly thanks to a 10% increase of that sector. It is, however, risky to put all eggs into the agricultural basket. Hence government’s effort to stimulate other sectors, such as the tourism industry and the ICT services sector. The digital highway is being built in an incredible speed, with thousands of workers digging the ditches for the new fiber-optic cables across the country.

Digging the digital highway near Byumba

One spin-off is new business opportunities for the growing number of telephone and for the the many electronics shops.

New Hope for electronics

Healthcare is also high on the agenda, with the life expectancy at birth rising spectacularly from 39 years in 2003 to 57 years in the tear 2010 (source CIA World Factbook). Rwandans can get government-subsidized healthcare insurance for $2. When insured, one gets 85% of costs covered, the remaining 15% to be paid by the individual. The system is designed centrally, but executed de-centrally by the regional healthcare centers, most of which are paid by government.

"Faith clinic", emerging market for health care services

Medical research for the main diseases (malaria, TBC, HIV) is mainly funded by foreign initiatives, such as by American Universities. Treatment for these diseases is free, in order to eliminate all barriers to the poor.

Improved education, higher productivity in agriculture, the emergence of profitable sectors, investments in the digital highway and the diminishment of dependency on imports are gradually increasing the standards of living. Entrepreneurs are quick to offer services to those who have made the step to the growing middle and upper classes.

Executive cleaner for the growing middle and upper classes

The price of these developments is that the current government does not like to see its efforts jeopardized by anyone. Hence, it is not open to criticism, and restricts the freedom of press. Although the many office supply shops have friendly names, what is put on paper is generally well controlled.

Friendly papershop

It is thanks to a clear vision and a very disciplined implementation of the plans that Rwanda is able to further develop the general health, level of education and economic situation of the population in a steady pace. Let’s celebrate at the happy end bar, after sixteen years of hard work.

Happy end bar

Throughout my Fellowship in Peru and now in Ecuador, I have been bestowed the opportunity to launch Kiva partnerships with 2 microfinance organizations and teach loan officers in various communities how to administer loans and interview borrowers.  However, after visiting the town of Chillanes, Ecuador with new Kiva Field Partner Cooperativa San José, this time I didn’t leave with the exciting feeling that I am helping bring the Kiva support and hopefully positive change to more people in underdeveloped communities.

Chillanes is a small, rural cantón (county) of 18,000 inhabitants in the Andes Mountains.  Upon my arrival, I was told that it is also the third poorest cantón in all of Ecuador, which is quite significant given that Ecuador consists of 226 cantones.  Needless to say, the conversations I had with the borrowers of Cooperativa San José turned a bit more somber when the discussion turned to business goals and dreams for the future.

The vast majority of these residents work in agriculture, harvesting corn, potatoes, and beans, among other produce as their only form of income.  While the land is very fertile and they encounter no unusual additional challenges compared to other farmers in the province, the area in Chillanes suffers from a severe lack of commercialization.  Too often are the farmers of Chillanes taken advantage of by the comerciantes (traders) who purchase fruits and vegetables in the markets and transport them to the surrounding cities to sell for a much higher price, pocketing the profits.  The comerciantes often work as a team with each other, agreeing to only buy from the farmers at low prices.  This often allows them to sell the fruits and vegetables they obtain for as high as a 100% markup to distributors or markets in other cities.  The farmers, however, have not organized themselves efficiently and thus must resort to selling to the comerciantes at the low prices since they have extremely limited trading options.  “After laboring for 10 months in the fields to harvest our corn and potatoes, and then to get ripped off in the end just isn’t right,” claims one borrower. “The prices of the products are so low right now.”

After an extensive discussion with William Silva, the head of the Chillanes branch office of Cooperativa San José, I learned that what is severely lacking in Chillanes that exists in other areas is a centralized distribution and communications network to link the farmers of the high-quality produce to the buyers in the major markets such as Guayaquil.  William says that the first step would be to create a centro de acopio (collection and distribution center) and improve the methods of communication to expand commerce to other parts of the country.  In contrast, further south on the coast less than 2 hours away, extensive banana plants as far as the eye can see are being cultivated to ship all over the world.

So why hasn’t this already happened?  What barriers are stopping them?  The biggest obstacle, from what I gathered from my friend William, is not an extraordinary hurdle, but rather themselves.  People in Chillanes have become accustomed to and complacent in their economic situation.  They lack the motivation to come together and invest in creating better trading opportunities.  The 5- or 10-year business plans that are so commonplace in American society have not been instilled in the minds of most people in third world countries.  They have more immediate needs at hand, such as ensuring food and shelter for their family and trying to put their children through school.

Another idea to jumpstart the economy would be to increase tourism.  Currently, the small town is old and relatively bare, but the surrounding landscapes and nature are picturesque.  The neblina (layer of fog) appears below Chillanes like a soft pillow across the hillside and the views from Chillanes are famous within the province.  Marketing the beauty and attracting the attention of domestic and international tourists is a much more difficult task to take on, however.

La Neblina in Chillanes

At the end of one borrower interview, after hesitantly asking the question about hopes and dreams, I was told, “I once had a lot of hopes and dreams, none of which I have been able to realize.”  By beginning to administer Kiva loans to those in obvious need in Chillanes, I am hoping we can at least start to provide a small piece of the support they need in order to help them help themselves.

3 Chillanes Borrowers with Kiva Fellow Josh Wilcox

Josh Wilcox is serving his second and final Kiva Fellows placement with the KF10 class at new Kiva partner Cooperativa San José in the Bolivar province in Ecuador.  There are currently fundraising loans available so please consider helping the farmers of the Bolivar province in Ecuador here.  Also join the recently created lending team here.

While Kiva Fellows work diligently with their host microfinance institutions to implement the Kiva processes, verify borrowers, and write insightful journals on the impacts of the loans, it is easy to miss the other behind-the-scenes projects that microfinance organizations are crafting in their lair.

Those of us from the developed world often do not realize that we are not the only ones brainstorming and designing how microfinance will evolve, determining the most effective means to empower individuals in emerging nations to improve their standard of living.

At Caja Rural Señor de Luren, a firmly established microfinance institution with over 30 branches throughout Peru (and my current MFI placement), they are currently in the process of developing three projects that will broaden the financial products offered to the poor and cement themselves as the sought-after destination for any microentrepreneur in need of capital in the region.

• ATMs and Debit Cards: Currently being installed in three locations in Ica and Lima, Caja Luren customers will not only be able to withdraw money from their savings account which they maintain with the MFI, but they will also have access to their microloan.  The funds from a loan to a borrower with a debit card will automatically be transferred to the personal account of the cardholder, which they can either withdrawal or use their card to purchase goods at stores and restaurants.  This opportunity serves multiple purposes.  The borrower is able to avoid the horrendous lines, which often stretch around the block at financial institutions in Latin America, and they will benefit from having a secure location to store their money (definitely much safer than a mattress).  As a business, Caja Luren also gains in this situation, because having a greater breadth of financial products is critical when facing increasing competition not only from EDPYME’s (i.e. Peruvian institutions that only offer small microloans), but also from other larger private and public financial institutions, including even foreign NGO’s (non-governmental organizations).

Below is a promotion for debit cards from Caja Rural that has been shown over the airwaves in Ica, Peru:

• Micro leasing: As one might deduce based on the name, this is a Caja Luren project that will, in the future, allow microentrepreneurs to lease equipment, machinery, or vehicles from the MFI.  All goods will be purchased new and officially owned by Caja Rural, while the microentrepreneurs pay monthly installments to the MFI to lease the equipment.  Finally, at the end of the leasing term, the individual will have the opportunity to purchase the item from Caja Luren at a reasonable, discounted price.  This way, a construction worker in Ica can afford his cement mixer to re-build the destroyed houses from the 2007 Peru earthquake and a seamstress in a rural neighborhood may own her sewing machine to make children’s clothes to sell during the Christmas season without requiring a significant up-front investment.
• Factoring: Offered to customers who have proven to have an established business with a steady income, factoring allows a microentrepreneur to place 30, 60, or even 90 days worth of one’s income as collateral to guarantee a loan.  While not yet implemented at Caja Luren, factoring will allow someone to take out a sizeable loan to invest in their business when no other guarantee is available, such as a title to a house or car.  This is just another technique to allow those with few tangible belongings to still have access to funds to invest in their microenterprises.

Josh Wilcox is a Kiva Fellow at Caja Rural Señor de Luren in Ica, Peru as part of the KF9 class.

Remember to LEND to Caja Rural’s entrepreneurs and JOIN the Amigos de Caja Rural Señor de Luren lending team!

Wordreference translates the Spanish word socio as member or partner.

Yesterday, on my first day as a Kiva Fellow at Asociación Arariwa, I got to see my first group loan disbursement.  Raquel (the Kiva coordinator at Arariwa) described the borrowers as Nuestros Socios (our members).  In a group loan at Arariwa, the borrowers are Socios del banco.  A lender who joins the Kiva community can also be called a Socio de Kiva.  I translate Kiva’s partner MFIs as Socios de Kiva (Kiva partners) and I describe myself as Socio de Kiva (Kiva Fellow).   And one more: here’s a past blog post by another Kiva Fellow, Michelle, about Socios Dinámicos.

Of course we all have other names -

• Institución de Microfinanzas – Microfinance Institution: Asociación Arariwa

Institución de Microfinanzas - Microfinance Institution: Asociación Arariwa

• Prestamista – Lender: Kiva Lending Team Amigos de Asociación Arariwa

Prestamista - Lender: Kiva Lending Team Amigos de Asociación Arariwa

• Prestatario – borrower: Ayda from Asociación Arariwa, Cusco, Peru

Prestatario - borrower: Ayda from Asociación Arariwa, Cusco, Peru

• Voluntario – Volunteer: “Lethal” Sheethal Shobowale, Kiva Fellow, KF9, Peru

Voluntario - Volunteer: "Lethal" Sheethal Shobowale, Kiva Fellow, KF9, Peru

but I really like the idea that we are all socios (partners or members) of Kiva, of microfinance and in alleviating poverty.  And going back to Kiva’s mission, Connecting People through Lending to Alleviate Poverty, being connected as socios seems to make sense to me.

Please consider becoming a Socio of Asociación Arariwa by lending to Arariwa borrowers and joining our Kiva lending team – Amigos/Amigas de Arariwa!

Sheethal Shobowale is currently serving as a Kiva Fellow with Asociación Arariwa in Cusco, Peru.