We wanted to let you know that Leona Feliciana has another loan posted on Kiva! Here's the description of their new loan:
Leona Feliciana is married and 32 years old. She didn't have a chance to study in school, but she has 4 children who are all in school. She is a weaver. She began this work thanks to the support of her parents, and to date she has 19 years of experience in this livelihood. Her husband also does the same type of work and they support each other.
She decided to ask for a loan, that will help her to invest in buying different types of thread of different colors and types, since she hopes that her business will be profitable and make more money to increase her family's income and to hire employees, which will help generate jobs for other people.
En el seguimiento de la Sra. Jenny se visito su taller donde nos atendió muy amablemente, sigue con la misma actividad de confección de sabanas y edredones, cuenta que le fue muy bien con el anterior crédito ya que lo utilizo en la compra de tela por mayor, también creció en su actividad mejorando la calidad de vida de toda su familia, están muy agradecida con Emprender y Kiva.
>About Emprender
EMPRENDER is an MFI (Microfinance Institution) that provides financial services to micro-entrepreneurs in Bolivia's towns and rural areas. EMPRENDER is committed to the advancement of underprivileged people and the promotion of a more fair and just society. Using its ownership equity, EMPRENDER works for the economic advancement of its micro-entrepreneurs: people who lack access to traditional bank loans and other conventional types of credit.
EMPRENDER began operating in February 1999 with a flagship program located in Chasquipampa, 35 km outside the city of La Paz. Its goals were to put into practice a business plan and coherent operating methods suitable for small businesses and to achieve success. It would focus more on serving clients in remote areas. EMPRENDER knows the importance of having its offices physically present and prepared to serve the towns and rural areas.
Since 2000, the same has been done in the cities of El Alto Santa Cruz and Cochabamba.
EMPRENDER currently operates with a Fifteen-office network; four offices in La Paz, four in Santa Cruz (one in El Torno, one in Pampa de la Isla and two in Santa Cruz), four in El Alto, and three in Colcapirhua, Panamericana and Sacaba in the Department of Cochabamba.
If you would like to lend to another EMPRENDER entrepreneur on Kiva, please click here (http://partners.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=110&status=fundRaising&sortBy=Old+to+New)
Or please join our Lending Team, EMPRENDER (http://www.kiva.org/team/emprender)
My name is Peter Soley and from September to December of this year I have been honored to volunteer at Kiva's Field Partner Emprender in Bolivia. In my months working with them, I was impressed with their dedication, efficient processes and capacity to process a large number of Kiva loans to the great benefit of borrowers.
This microfinance institution helps Bolivian entrepreneurs by offering loans with reasonable interest rates that average less than 2% monthly -- very low compared to other banking institutions. Here in Bolivia where poverty rates reach nearly 60%, low interest rates make a huge difference to borrowers who need credit to grow their businesses.
Emprender provides an array of loans and services to Kiva borrowers, including student loans, housing loans and rural loans designed specifically for farmers. They offer flexible repayment schedules that fit the seasonal cycles of the agricultural sector.
Because of its hard work in helping the poorest Bolivians, Emprender carries Kiva's Family & Community Empowerment and Innovation social performance badges. Emprender's commitment to local communities is evident in creative projects like a water sanitation program in partnership with the SODIS Foundation. Emprender also runs medical clinics in several of its branch offices with doctors on-site to care for sick borrowers, provide prenatal care and promote wellness.
I'm especially impressed with Emprender's reach. I visited 10 branch offices spread throughout the La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz regions and met with borrowers who expressed deep satisfaction with Emprender.
I was grateful to meet Señora Celestina who lives in the sloping hills above La Paz. Thanks to a Kiva loan, she is able to meet the growing demand for her cookies and holiday pastries and is expanding to markets far beyond her neighborhood.
I also met an enthusiastic Señor Flavio from Santa Cruz who, with the help of Kiva, is growing his business installing and repairing remote-controlled gates.
And I was treated to a pleasant afternoon in the lush backyard of Señora Yélica from Santa Cruz who rises early seven days a week to bake pan de arroz and cheese empanadas that she can now sell in the city markets for more income thanks to her larger Kiva-funded oven.
Emprender is deeply committed to serving borrowers no matter their location. Often it's in the most challenging and isolated communities where microcredit is most needed. It's clear from the high number of repeat Kiva loans that Emprender is winning hearts all throughout Bolivia!
So thank you. Thank you for helping Emprender serve ambitious and dedicated entrepreneurs here in Bolivia. It's because of your commitment to Kiva that Emprender can provide fair and competitive low-interest loans and other services in typically underserved communities.
You have made a huge impact on borrower's lives by loaning through Kiva.
If you like Emprender and its borrowers as much as I do, please continue lending to them by clicking here. You can also join its lending team to receive more updates about Emprender's good work here in Bolivia.
Thank you so much for you generous support of Mongolian borrowers through XacBank (pronounced Hahs Bank). They are the leading microfinance institution in Mongolia and known around the world for their innovative loan products.
XacBank is an intermediary between you (the lender) and the borrower, to screen and monitor loans disbursed and to ensure borrowers are receiving the support they need. My job as a Kiva Fellow, is to strengthen the relationship between Kiva and XacBank and to implement new projects run by both organizations.
Due to the suffocating pollution in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city in Mongolia, XacBank has been a leading advocate to reverse the trend of it becoming the most polluted city on earth (in 2011, Ulaanbaatar was ranked the 2nd most polluted city on earth , according to the World Health Organization.)
Read more on XacBank's website to see how they are offering loans and partnering with other NGOs (ADRA) and other organizations to subsidize energy efficient solutions to this massive problem.
There is no shortage of green loans that XacBank provides! You will be seeing an increasing number of these loans on the Kiva website with possible loan uses ranging from solar panels and natural gas car retrofits to greenhouses and machinery for organic fruit and vegetable production. I was able to visit Tsetsegmaa, who has a dairy business providing organic products to her customers, including a local high school. Organic dairy businesses like these are an integral part of Mongolian culture as they are traditionally a nomadic herding people, and dairy products make up a large part of their diet. Kiva and XacBank are committed to slowing the environmental impact of this country's economic development, especially as their economy is expected to grow by almost 15% in 2012!
XacBank will soon be posting Start-up Loans to the Kiva site. These are especially exciting for me as it means that these loans were not available to clients previously because of certain requirements (their credit score, past experience, collateral, etc.), but will now be offered, and even at a lower interest rate. This will enable more riskier and impoverished clients to access much needed credit. The catch: these borrowers must accomplish specific training for how to run a business and have a clear business plan. Coming soon to the Kiva site!
As I met with more and more borrowers across this vast country, I realized that their lives are changing at an ever-increasing rate. After the fall of the Soviet Union, around 1990, the population has all of a sudden had to change their thinking regarding the economy. Although the literacy rate is high, the general financial literacy rate has room for improvement. XacBank is well positioned to help borrowers comfortably deal with this changing economic landscape. My favourite aspect of XacBank's non-loan offerings is that they give Kiva clients 9% of the interest back in the form of a savings account when all payments have been made on time. Many of these customers have never had a savings account before.
On behalf of all the borrowers and staff at XacBank, I want to thank you so much for your generous support of micro-entrepreneurs in Mongolia. I would highly recommend visiting this country of extremes (keep in mind, when I arrived in early February, it was -40C) not only to experience the harsh beauty of the landscape, but also the overwhelming hospitality of the people. For more information on XacBank, please visit their Partner Profile page. Also, you can continue to help Mongolian micro-entrepreneurs even more by joining the XacBank Kiva Lending Team!
Thank you so much for your generous support to Mongolian borrowers through Credit Mongol!
Credit Mongol is an intermediary between you (the lender) and the borrower, to screen and monitor loans disbursed and to ensure borrowers receive the support they need. It is the leading non-bank financial institution in Mongolia and have been a Kiva partner for over two years. My job as a Kiva Fellow is to strengthen the relationship between Kiva and Credit Mongol and to implement new projects for both organizations.
Due to the suffocating pollution in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city in Mongolia, Credit Mongol and Kiva have started to target customers with environmentally friendly loan products. These Green Loans are currently up on the Kiva website and include loan uses ranging from solar panels and natural gas car retrofits, to greenhouses and machinery for organic fruit and vegetable production.
Along with other eco-friendly businesses in the region, Credit Mongol hopes to reverse the trend of Ulaanbaatar becoming the most polluted city on earth (in 2011 it was ranked the 2nd most polluted city on earth, according to the World Health Organization.)
I was able to visit Baasansuren , a Credit Mongol client, who built his own house in a ger district (slum area of town without basic infrastructure like paved roads, running water and regular electricity). I saw his wonderful craftsmanship and the pride he had for his work. He was happy to have installed a radiator heating system linked to a low-pressure furnace to drastically reduce coal usage and its harmful emissions (pictured here with his low pressure furnace on the right). Kiva and Credit Mongol are committed to slowing the environmental impact of this country's economic development, especially as its economy is expected to grow by almost 15% in 2012!
As I met with more and more borrowers across this vast country, I realized that their lives are changing at an ever-increasing rate. After the fall of the Soviet Union, around 1990, the population has all of a sudden had to change its economic thinking. And although the literacy rate is high, the general financial literacy rate has room for improvement. Credit Mongol continues to offer financial services targeted to groups not able to receive them elsewhere.
On behalf of all the borrowers and staff at Credit Mongol, I want to thank you so much for your generous support of micro-entrepreneurs in Mongolia. I would highly recommend visiting this country of extremes (keep in mind, when I arrived in early February, it was -40 C) not only to experience the harsh beauty of the landscape, but also the overwhelming hospitality of the people.
Saludos desde Nicaragua! I'm excited to be writing to you as the Kiva fellow based in Managua, where I've been working with Kiva Field Partner CEPRODEL for the last four months. You're receiving this message because you've supported at least one Kiva borrower through CEPRODEL, and I wanted to share a bit of my experience with you.
CEPRODEL is one of Kiva's first Field Partners in the region -- it has been selecting borrowers, posting their photos and descriptions to the Kiva website and collecting repayments for five years!
It's also one of the most established microfinance institutions in Nicaragua after managing to survive the impacts of the country's "No Payment Movement" and the global economic crisis that wrecked the Nicaraguan microfinance industry in 2008. I was happy to see that CEPRODEL has now moved on from survival mode to expanding services to new areas, new target groups and new loan products. More about these later.
I mostly worked alongside Kiva Coordinator Beyra, who's in charge of all things Kiva at CEPRODEL. She monitors all of the loans that you see on Kiva.org, making sure that the loan officers shoot good pictures and that the borrower profile descriptions are complete, correct and informative.
Beyra is fairly new on the job and is just 21 years old, but she's highly professional and passionate about the difference she can make for microfinance clients through CEPRODEL and Kiva. She loves to read borrower profiles from other countries herself too and is also a Kiva lender. A while back, she wrote a message introducing herself to the CEPRODEL Lenders Team too.
CEPRODEL's loan officers are a hardworking bunch. I never thought that the work of a loan officer could be so demanding. First of all, they know every client personally by name, the type of work or business they have, family nucleus and their address (in a country where the streets have no names). That is very impressive given that the average loan officer has a portfolio of over 100 clients.
Secondly, loan officers spend most of their day out in the burning Nicaraguan sun visiting clients for intakes, collecting repayments and sometimes chasing them in case of delinquency. I was fortunate to spend many days on the road with almost all of the loan officers at CEPRODEL -- most of them use a motorbike to reach the many remote clients, spending hours off-road in search of that one borrower here or there.
I also had the unique chance to meet borrowers in person. On one of my visits, I had the opportunity to meet Marvin Antonio. He's a farmer in the south of Nicaragua who grows maize, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelons and more. Marvin Antonio has zero machinery and no employees; he does everything by hand and by himself -- but with an enormous passion.
While he was showing us around his land, his two young daughters ran around us, excited to be receiving visitors.
"I wake up every morning at 4 a.m. and work the land until the sun sets in the evening," Marvin Antonio told me. "But I love my work – I cannot imagine wanting to do anything else."
It is thanks to Kiva loans and lenders that Marvin Antonio can make his dreams come true and provide a loving home and good education for his children. The land he lives on is not his own; the proprietor lets him live there in exchange for taking care of the crops. One day, Marvin Antonio would like to own his own piece of land. Watch a special message from him and his two daughters here (in Spanish).
I also met Petrona who lives in the capital Managua. Thanks to a loan from CEPRODEL, she has been able to improve the roof and walls of her house. But what her profile page doesn't tell you is that Petrona owns a very successful pulperia (corner shop) employing three employees. The reason I met Petrona is that she is the wife of my regular Managua taxi driver Julio. Julio had been picking me up to and from work every day, and we had spent hours in his taxi talking about life, our families, our dreams and plans. It was a special experience to get to know a normal Nicaraguan family so well.
CEPRODEL offers many housing loans. They even have a whole social department that is dedicated to teaching clients how to live in communities and design and build housing projects. But in the 4 months that I worked with CEPRODEL, I witnessed a move into more innovative areas. For example, CEPRODEL is the only microfinance institution that offers microloans to sugarcane workers who suffer from Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) after years of dehydration and exposure to chemicals in the fields. Kiva has recently started to post these loans so you can now lend to a sick ex-cane workers.
On top of that, CEPRODEL has recently started offering loans to young entrepreneurs (ages 18 to 29) for starting new businesses, focusing on clients with limited resources and single mothers. Keep an eye on CEPRODEL's borrowers on Kiva to see these loans come online.
For me personally, the opportunity to work with Kiva, meeting borrowers, working with staff at microfinance institutions and spending a week with Kiva's president Premal Shah in Nicaragua was an unforgettable experience.
And the journey continues! I'm now off for a second Kiva fellowship in my hometown of San Diego where I will work with ACCION San Diego, one of our U.S. partners. It will be interesting to see the differences and similarities.
I invite you to check out some of the borrowers CEPRODEL is supporting right now and become a member of their lending team to stay up to date with the latest.
We wanted to let you know that Altantuya has another loan posted on Kiva! Here's the description of their new loan:
Altantuya is 37 years old and lives with her husband and son in house in Hovd province, Mongolia. Her husband Tungalagtuya is 38 years old and helps her business. Her adopted son Amarbayan is 6 months old. She is a hardworking and honest person.
Altantuya started her business in 2000 by selling organic salt retail at the local market. She extracted organic salt from the Nariin river of Hovd province. She produced iodized salt out of organically extracted salt from river. During the winter, the river freezes, and extracting salt is impossible.
She has years of experience, declaring that "I am one of three big salt retailers within the province." She needs a loan of MNT 6,000,000 to pay transportation and production costs of organic iodized salt.
Thank you so much for your generous support of Ugandan borrowers through Kiva Field Partner HOFOKAM!
HOFOKAM works hard to connect you (the lender) with borrowers, to screen and monitor loans, and to ensure that borrowers receive the support they need. It's a leading microfinance provider in Western Uganda, focusing on rural areas, and has been a Kiva partner for just over 2 years.
My job as a recent Kiva Fellow was to strengthen the relationship between Kiva and HOFOKAM by troubleshooting and streamlining the processes it uses to post loans to Kiva, and by clarifying and recommending systems and protocols to increase its efficiency and effectiveness.
Because Kiva is so committed to transparency and accuracy, there are many behind-the-scenes processes and systems that must be functioning correctly all at once. To finalize HOFOKAM's systems, I conducted random checks of 10 of its borrowers, verifying that the information posted on Kiva matched the reality in the field.
It was on one of these borrower visits that I met Tadeo (pictured). He's a farmer who lives near Fort Portal, Uganda -- arguably one of the most beautiful parts of the country. During our interview, Tadeo went to grab something to show me. What he brought back was truly a surprise. He had a booklet of projections and plans for the land he wanted to buy, what he wanted to plant, how much the seeds would cost, and even profit estimates. This is pretty remarkable in Uganda, and even the loan officer I was with was impressed. Tadeo's the type of entrepreneur who will go on to employ others, grow his business and ultimately lift more people out of poverty. This is the type of entrepreneur that Kiva is all about!
Tadeo was able to buy the land with the profits that his loan brought in. That way, he wouldn't have to rent it and could realize even greater profits. His business sense kicked in again when he told me that retailing produce was the business he used to be in, but profit margins were shrinking so he moved his focus to farming where profit margins are higher. He also seems to be on track to build a new house for his family. He already had the most expensive part -- the roof -- sitting behind his current house.
On behalf of all the borrowers and staff at HOFOKAM, I want to thank you so much for your generous support of micro-entrepreneurs in Uganda. I would highly recommend visiting this "Pearl of Africa," as Uganda is called, to not only experience the wonderful landscape, treks and animals but also the joy and smiles of the people. For more information on HOFOKAM, please visit its partner profile page. Also, you can help Ugandan micro-entrepreneurs even more by joining the Team HOFOKAM – Uganda Kiva lending team!
Chị Lê Thị Duyên là nhóm trưởng của nhóm 040712 - Hoằng Trường -Hoằng Hoá.Chị đã sử dụng vốn vay vào việc mua lưới để đánh cá, với số tiền chị được vay là 5.310.000VNĐ(~252,857USD). hằng tháng chị đánh bắt được khoảng 3.500.000VNĐ/tháng(~166,667USD) trừ chi phí khoảng 2.000.000VNĐ/tháng(~95,23USD) vậy trung bình số tiền lãi chị thu được hằng tháng là 1.500.000VNĐ/tháng (~71,42USD).số tiền này chị dùng để trang trải chi phí cho gia đình và nộp tiền cho quỹ hộ trợ phụ nữ nghèo Thanh Hoá các thành viên trong nhóm của chị gồm:
Chị Phạm Thị Tình vay vốn để đánh cá và vá lưới .số tiền chị vay được là 5.310.000VNĐ(~252,857USD) hằng tháng chị thu nhập được là 2.500.000VNĐ/tháng(~119,045USD)trừ chi phí khoảng 500.000VNĐ/tháng (~23,80USD) vậy trung bình số tiền lãi chị thu được hằng tháng là 2.000.000VNĐ/tháng (~95,23USD).
Chị Lê Thị Phượng vay vốn về để buôn bán.số tiền chị được vay là 5.310.000VNĐ(~252,857USD) hằng ngày chị đi buôn bán được khoảng 200.000VNĐ/ngày(~9,53USD) trừ chi phí khoảng 120.000VNĐ/ngày(~5,71USD) vậy trung bình số tiền lãi chị thu được hằng ngày là 80.000VNĐ/ngày (~3,80USD).như vậy số tiền hằng tháng chị thu nhập được là 2.400.000VNĐ(~114,284USD).
Chị Nguyễn Thị Sen vay vốn để đánh cá và vá lưới .số tiền chị vay được là 5.310.000VNĐ(~252,857USD) hằng tháng chị thu nhập được là 2.500.000VNĐ/tháng(~119,045USD)trừ chi phí khoảng 500.000VNĐ/tháng (~23,80USD) vậy trung bình số tiền lãi chị thu được hằng tháng là 2.000.000VNĐ(~95,23 USD )
Chị Phạm Thị Hiền vay vốn để đánh cá và vá lưới .số tiền chị vay được là 5.310.000VNĐ(~252,857USD) hằng tháng chị thu nhập được là 2.500.000VNĐ/tháng(~119,045USD)trừ chi phí khoảng .1000.000VNĐ/tháng (~47,62USD) vậy trung bình số tiền lãi chị thu được hằng tháng là 1.500.000 VNĐ( ~71,43 USD )
Chị Nguyễn Thị Cành vay vốn để đánh cá vá lưới. Số tiền chị vay được là 5.310.000 VNĐ( ~252,857 USD ) hàng tháng chị thu nhập được 3.000.000 VNĐ (~142,857 VNĐ ) trừ chi phí khoảng1.200.000VNĐ (~57,14 USD ). Vậy trung bình hàng tháng chị thu được khoảng 1.800.000 VNĐ (~85,71USD )
Tsetsegmaa is grateful with Kiva and their lenders' help to her business. The loan of MNT3,000,000 was disbursed by XacBank branch "Songinohairhan" in Ulaanbaatar, Kiva's Mongolian partner MFI, on April, 2010. The borrower runs business trading of vegetabless at the market by renting a counter. With the loan funding she purchased 2 tons of potatoes, 1 tons of cabbages, 0.5 tons of carrots. Due to loan funding working capital and business profit have been increased . Thus, she saved expenses on transporting goods frequently.From the profit she paid tuition fee of her daughter. Also, she used the profit on consumption.
We wanted to let you know that Milagros Del Rosario has another loan posted on Kiva! Here's the description of their new loan:
Milagros del Rosario is 34 years old, married, and lives in her own home with her husband and children. She has good references and has demonstrated herself to be very responsible with her previous loans, always paying on time. She lives in a community that has 5 thousand people and she lives in a rustic house. Milagros has worked selling beef and pork for the past 3 years in the village of Morropon, in the north of Peru.
The loan that she is asking for will be invested in her business, specifically for the purchase of small animals like goats and pigs, this way she will have greater income to support her family and as a result better living conditions. The market has potential for investment in this type of business, given that there are few people with similar businesses and market prospects are good for investment in the purchase of animals. She expects to be profitable in the short term. One of her primary objectives is to gain more clients and to sell 100% of her products, and to achieve this she works very hard and responsibly, waking up very early every morning to get to work.
Dès réception de ce prêt avec Soro Yiriwaso, j'ai acheté comme prévu des matières premières 500 grammes en or, 10 pièces en argent et des zinc pour transforme en bijoux et bracelets.
En ce moment, Dieu merci tout marche au niveau de l'atelier mais aussi au niveau de la vente des bijoux.
Bien sûr que le but a été réalisé, puisque l'objectif était d'abord d'augmenter mon fonds de commerce pour mieux satisfaire la clientèle de plus en plus croissante.
Pour le moment je me limite à mes propres efforts au niveau de la vente des bijoux mais dans un avenir proche, j'envisage progresser dans ce domaine en ouvrant un grand atelier de vente des matières premières et accessoires.
Grâce ce prêt auprès de Soro Yiriwaso, j'ai pu faire face à de nombreux problèmes d'ordre familial et social.
Je suis très reconnaissant et satisfait de l'institution de microfinance Soro Yiriwaso et de son partenaire Kiva.
Avec ce présent prêt, comme prévu j'ai pu acheté les marchandises 30 cartons de Poissons frais de qualités différentes. Ce prêt a contribué au changement positif de mon activité parce que il m'a permis d'acheter diverses sortes de poissons dont les clients avaient besoin qui vient augmenter ainsi la recette journalière.
Le but a été réalisé car l'objectif était de diversifier les marchandises afin de pouvoir améliorer le rendement ce qui est déjà fait grâce à Dieu. Avec l'arrivée de ces nouveaux produits, la demande n'a cessé d'augmenter malgré.
Dans un avenir proche j'aurais voulu ouvrir une grande poissonnerie et être une référence pour les clients ce qui va être liée à la diversification de mes marchandises.
Grâce à ce prêts, j'ai pu faire face à de nombreux problèmes d'ordre familial et social.
Greetings from Pakistan!
Dear KIVA Lenders!
I apologize for the delay in updating you about the current financial progress of Fatima who received loan from KIVA partner Asasah for her husband's CD selling business.
With the loan investment, he purchased CDs of different movies and softwares for selling through his shop. As a result, his business has expanded and he is making more sales and income.
Fatima is very happy to see that her husband is making more income from his business after investing the loan.
Her family is spending better life and she has returned the entire loan back in installments.
She offers her kindest regards to KIVA and Asasah for their generous loan support.
On behalf of Asasah (microfinance institute in Pakistan and a partner of Kiva), thank you for your continued generosity! Your support is important to us and we are very grateful.
We wanted to let you know that Juan Antonio has another loan posted on Kiva! Many borrowers take out successive microfinance loans, meaning that after they have repaid one loan, they take out another loan to continue to grow their business. Some borrowers also take out simultaneous add-on loans along with their primary loan, and these loans are typically smaller and serve a different purpose than their primary loan.
Because of the way Kiva's billing system works, Juan Antonio may have fully repaid the previous loan to the Field Partner, but you may not have received the final repayments on that loan yet. If you have any questions about this, please email Kiva Customer Service at contactus@kiva.org.
Juan con su anterior credikiva compró materias primas y preparó productos de panadería que vendió y esto le genera satisfacción. En la actualidad se prepara para un nuevo credikiva, el cual planea invertir en materias primas, pues comprará harina, azúcar, grasa, mantequilla, en mayor volumen y con ello aumentará su producción de productos y los venderá como dice e adagio. "como pan caliente" , para indicar que la rotación es rápida. Su éxito radica en la ubicación de su local en un punto estratégicamente comercial. Su mensaje a los financiadores de Kiva es el siguiente: "Gracias por el apoyo recibido y la manera de retribuirles es con el pago puntual del crédito"
Merci d'avoir supporté Maléki avec votre prêt. Maléki vient de faire son dernier remboursement et voudrait vous mettre à jour du progrès de son activité principale.
Comme prévu, Maléki a utilisé son crédit afin d'acheter des cartes de recharges.
Maléki a réalisé une augmentation de ses bénéfices.
Merci d'avoir supporté Komla avec votre prêt. Komla vient de faire son dernier remboursement et voudrait vous mettre à jour du progrès de son activité principale.
Comme prévu, Komla a utilisé son crédit afin d'acheter des cartes de recharges.
Komla a réalisé une augmentation de ses bénéfices de 20000 FCFA par mois. Grace a cette augmentation, il se prend en charge.
Efua has two businesses. She has two businesses. She sells Fante kenkey and palm kernel oil. Palm kernel oil is edible plant oil derived from the kernel of the oil palm. It should not be confused with the other two edible oils derived from palm fruits: coconut oil, extracted from the kernel of the coconut, and palm oil, extracted from the pulp of the oil palm fruit. It is mainly used to fry greater quantities of fish for sale in Ghana.
Fante Kenkey is made from ground corn (maize). Kenkey involves letting the maize dough ferment before cooking, the dough is partially cooked in a large pot, and during the process of cooking it is stirred continuously with a large wooden ladle to achieve a solid paste and smooth consistency. The half cooked dough is left to cool for some time. It is then wrapped in banana leaves, and steamed. Fante kenkey can be eaten with fried fish and hot pepper sauce.
She took out the loan because she had small working capital. The loan is really helping her business. She is married to a policeman and has six children.
Con su credikiva, Maria Elena compró una fotocopiadora y papelería con la que surtió su negocio. Su nuevo ingreso le ha incrementado sus ingresos en un 40% y los clientes se sienten mas satisfechos. Su meta mas adelante es comprar 2 nuevas vitrinas exhibidoras metalicas y en un futuro cercano comprar varios computadores para ofrecer el servicio de internet. Ella envia el siguiente mensaje a sus finaciadores de Kiva: " Estoy muy agradecida por la ayuda recibida y espero que este programa pueda tener cobertura en toda Colombia en donde hay muchisimas microempresas a la espera de un préstamo. "
Madame ASSATA a depuis l'octroi du prêt acheté une balle de chaussures. Son cycle achat vente est devenu rapide et son bénéfice est en augmentation, la demande cliente est grande et les perspectives d'avenir sont bonnes.
Bahodur is very grateful to you for the support rendered to him. He is very please to inform his numerous lenders that their loan to him was very much helpful in improving his farm. With the loan, he was able to buy seeds and fertilizers. Thanks the loan Bahodur was able to plant on a much bigger farm than before. His farm made him enough profit so that he can improve his family living.
Greetings from La Paz, Bolivia. I arrived as a Kiva Fellow to work with Kiva partner microfinance institution Emprender. My work with Emprender focused on assisting with improving their processes from interviewing the Kiva Borrowers to posting loans onto Kiva.org. Emprender, which means Undertake in Spanish, tailors their products toward the economically active poor in La Paz, Cochabamba, and Santa Cruz, which are the three largest towns in the country. Focused on promoting first time business startups and solidarity lending, Emprender offers their clients the ability to take the first step toward economic activity, which is so vital to their livelihood. More established clients have the opportunity to take out larger loan amounts and "opportunity loans," used specifically when a business-changing opportunity is available for a brief moment of time. Emprender operates fourteen branch offices from the urban, semi-urban, and rural areas to reach the gamut of clients who need their services.
Non-Financial Services
What I found impressive while at Emprender was their dedication to non-financial services. Two medical doctors work fulltime in two Emprender branch offices. From my experience as a Kiva Fellow I have seen MFIs who offer great loan products, but I non-financial services offered are nearly just as important. Medical care is available in Bolivia, but a large divide exists surrounding cost and care between public and private hospitals. Emprender's Mission is to "improve their [client's] quality of life," and providing free medical consultations for clients and non-clients is a key factor in achieving that mission. The doctors provide in-house medical consultations, which includes a blood pressure check, ear/nose/throat check, and vital organ check – all of which are free of charge. The doctors also provide medical trainings to group loan clients. These group meetings cover issues related to women's health, breast cancer, nutrition, vaccination, anti-parasite medication, contraception, and family planning. In 2010 Emprender provided over 900 medical exams and provided around 50 training sessions each month to Emprender clients. Next year Emprender would like to expand their medical operations to another branch office in a lower income area outside of La Paz. One of the main ways that Emprender can afford to offer free health care, to both clients and non-clients, is by using the interest saved from Kiva loans (*How Kiva Works: Lenders receive repayment of their $25 loan, and the MFI receives the interest paid from the loan. This interest is a great benefit to the MFI and is used to fund other projects at the MFI or lower MFI interest rates, etc.). Part of the success and expansion of the medical program depends on the collected interest Emprender receives from these Kiva loans.
Story of a Borrower
Beyond the medical services provided, I would like to share with you a client who I was able to meet and interview. His name is Hugo, and he is a puzzle maker in El Alto, Bolivia. With his Kiva loan he purchased a skill saw to cut the intricate shapes of children's puzzles. Previously he was cutting all the shapes by hand using a small tricky saw. It would take him hours to complete just one puzzle, but now he can cut multiple puzzles in those hours. This loan essentially transformed his business from a small-time production to a main supplier for shops in El Alto. Hugo's dream is to purchase another skill saw and hire an employee (who would become his apprentice). He says there are plenty of people who want to work in his area and there is also high demand for his puzzles. Not only did his loan from Emprender boost his production, but it also got the momentum going in his business toward the growth he previously thought was impossible.
So, why fund loans through Emprender? With most clients not being able to take loans from traditional banks or financial institutions, due to high collateral requirements and credit worthiness, microfinance institutions are a significant part to the sustainability of businesses. Emprender is able to offer their clients an alternative to large banks and personally help their clients mitigate over-indebtedness through teaching programs on how to live a financially healthy life.
A loan made to an Emprender client ensures transparency and a dedication to the wellbeing of the client. Kiva Lenders are not only funding a client, but also (through the interest collected by Emprender) funding the non-financial services Emprender offers. One of which includes a soccer program for very low-income boys and girls in La Paz and El Alto. Loans also give borrowers the opportunity to take their business and life into their own hands and many economic barriers are lifted.
Thank you again for you loans to Emprender clients. I hope that you continue to lend through Emprender and to Kiva entrepreneurs in the future!
Sincerely,
Eric Rindal
KF15 Sierra Leone, KF16 Bolivia
For more information on my work in Bolivia, you read about my experiences on the Kiva Fellows Blog.
Selmita pudo comprar mayor cantidad de productos para as� poder ofrecer en su tienda de abarrotes, ahora vende mas ya que tiene lo que los clientes se van a comprar, adem�s arreglo su mototaxi y puede tenerlo operativo, esto significa un ingreso mas a su econom�a y as� puede tener la tranquilidad de seguir trabajando.
Clavelia, ve con alegr�a como sus plantitas de caf� estan dando buenos frutos. Todo esto gracias al apoyo econ�mico que tubo, pues compr� 5 mil plantitas que estan creciendo sin inconvenientes.
As my time winds down here in Leon, Nicaragua, I wanted to reach out to you, as Kiva lenders, for a couple reasons. First, hopefully I can paint a clearer picture of the country and microcredit environment that you have been supporting; and second, I would like to give you some more information about the Kiva field partner, Fundación Leon 2000 (FL 2000), that manages the relationships with the entrepreneurs that your kindness is assisting.
Truth be told, Nicaragua was not my top choice for a country placement as a newly minted Kiva Fellow (my initial focus was much further south in the Americas). I had visited Nicaragua once before, and felt that I was familiar with what I was heading towards. Of course, visiting for a week of vacation is one thing; living and working in a country for almost four months is quite another.
As I was before arriving here in May, you are likely aware of the recent (and not-so-recent) history of Nicaraguan struggles. However, the result has been a country left with the second highest level of poverty in the western hemisphere (after Haiti).
When I signed on for my second placement as a Kiva Fellow (which will be in Guatemala), my first choice was to stay in Nicaragua. The country I have come to know is one with an exceptionally rich culture filled with an extremely intelligent,open, and friendly populace. Nicaraguans have been subjected to many injustices, both from external and internal sources, but they remain a very proud people.
As Kiva has shared on its website, the microfinance industry in Nicaragua has faced some significant headwinds over the last several years. At the forefront is 'No Pago', a movement led mostly by farming groups in the north that have refused to pay back their microcredit loans, and that are looking for relief from the government, the microfinance industry, and anyone else that can potentially provide it. The other major challenge to the microcredit industry in Nicaragua has been the global financial crisis in 2008 and overall stagnant economy since then.
Kiva's field partner, Fundación Leon 2000, has weathered both fronts relatively well. Concerning the former, FL 2000 has very little direct exposure to the delinquencies associated with the 'No Pago' movement. To that point, the delinquency rate for Kiva loans through FL 2000 is approximately 1.50% and the default rate is de minimis. However, the news surrounding the 'No Pago' movement has hurt the ability to raise external capital in the last several years. Additionally, the overall global financial environment has added to the fundraising difficulties. As a result, FL 2000's client roster and loan portfolio have decreased markedly in recent years. Nonetheless, FL 2000 has tightened its fiscal belt by instituting cost cutting measures such as a reducing its staff and minimizing the use of utilities in its offices and thus has been able to maintain a strong position in its seven principal markets (Leon is the main office, and then there are six branches, primarily northwest of Managua) and be well-positioned for growth as the environment becomes more stable.
While the current economic backdrop has indeed exacerbated an already challenging small business climate, there are still a considerable number of stories that confirm how helpful your loans are to these entrepreneurs. One of Fundación Leon's clients that I was fortunate to meet provides an outstanding example of what a small amount of capital ($300, in this case) and a lot of hard work can accomplish. Roger Antonio of Nagarote started several years ago as a tailor's apprentice, learning a trade that he hoped would help him support his family. With a small loan from FL 2000, he was able to branch out on his own to build his own clientele in the local markets. Now after a pair of subsequent loans (which he used to buy fabric, threads, needles, scissors, sewing machine oil and various other tools) and hiring two employees to assist mostly with selling the dress shirts he sews, Roger Antonio has plans to expand out of his home and into his own shop. While he consistently works long hours, six or seven days a week, Roger Antonio not only is able to provide for his family, but he does so feeling a great amount of pride in the business he is successfully building.
Of course, there are many other clients of FL 2000 that have similar stories like that of Roger Antonio. On behalf of the scores of Fundación Leon clients that I met, and the thousands that I didn't, I would like to thank you for your generosity and giving these entrepreneurs an opportunity to improve their lives and those of their families.
Akbarali has requested a loan of 6000 Somoni. He has used the loan for buying of necessary fertilizers and seeds for his crop. Thanks to the loan Akbarali gave a good harvest. With this support he improved his life and also expanded his business. Anbarali is thankful to KIVA and KIVA lenders for their support and kindness.
We wanted to let you know that Cristobal Javier has another loan posted on Kiva! Many borrowers take out successive microfinance loans, meaning that after they have repaid one loan, they take out another loan to continue to grow their business. Some borrowers also take out simultaneous add-on loans along with their primary loan, and these loans are typically smaller and serve a different purpose than their primary loan.nnIf you're interested in lending to Cristobal Javier again, you can see Cristobal Javier's new loan at http://www.kiva.org/lend/355612.nnBecause of the way Kiva's billing system works, Cristobal Javier may have fully repaid the previous loan to the Field Partner, but you may not have received the final repayments on that loan yet. If you have any questions about this, please email Kiva Customer Service at contactus@kiva.org.
Merci d'avoir supporté Twifatanye avec votre prêt. Le nom du groupe signifie «Mettons nous ensemble». Les membres de Twifatanye viennent de faire leurs remboursements et voudront vous mettre à jour du progrès de leurs agricultures des pommes de terre et des maïs. rnrnComme prévu, les membres de Twifatanye ont utilisé leurs crédits afin d'acheter des semences, louer des champs et payer la main d'œuvre. rnrnLes membres de Twifatanye disent que le crédit a aidé leurs activités beaucoup. Ils ont réalisé une augmentation de leurs bénéfices. Avec les profits, les membres de Twifatanye ont payé les frais de scolarité de leurs enfants et ils ont amélioré le niveau de manger dans leurs familles.rnrnDans les prochaines années, les membres de Twifatanye voudront augmenter toujours la capacité du business, devenir les premiers et solliciter d'autres crédits. Ils disent qu'avec des profits, ils prévoient de construire des nouveaux domiciles et rassurer le bien être de leurs familles.rnrnLes membres de Twifatanye voudront remercier les prêteurs de Kiva. rnrn
It has just come to our attention that the incorrect borrower photo was uploaded by mistake. The correct photo has now been posted. Our apologies for the confusion.rnrn-Kiva Staff
We recently followed up with Hussien, a kiva borrower from Lebanon, he has owned a photography shop since 2007. He has been working in photography for the past 8 years; He really loves his job because he thinks that it's creative and artistic. With his kiva loan of $1,200 he purchases a new photography machine, this step have increased the number of people asking for his services especially during the summer seasons, in which his increased by more than 25%.rnWith its interest-free loan from Kiva, Ameen has been able to offer lower interest rates to Kiva borrowers and to disburse the Kiva loan faster than any of its other micro loan products. Ameen has also been able to reach different market segments, such as lower-income borrowers, as a result of its direct-lending efforts (including Kiva). We hope that you will continue to support Kiva's Lebanon borrowers and invest in Ameen and its clients.rnrnrn rnrnrnAbout Ameen:rnrnrnAmeen was established in 1999 in Lebanon as a micro-credit program funded by USAID, under the patronage of CHF International. CHF is a non-profit organization working in more than 35 countries. Evolving successfully to a separate company, Ameen today is a Lebanese financial institution specialized in microfinance. Ameen's goal is to contribute to the economic and social development of the community.rnrnrnAmeen provides financial services to micro-entrepreneurs and low-income households to help them develop their businesses and improve their living standards. Ameen offers loans for small businesses, housing and consumer needs. Ameen's beneficiaries work in a variety of sectors and include activities such as handcraft, trade, services, small industries and agriculture to name a few.rnrnrnSince Ameen's inception, over 41,000 micro-entrepreneurs and low-income households have benefited from its services, with more than 115 million US dollars disbursed representing over 81,000 loans. Supported by a dedicated team of professionals, Ameen currently partners with four local banks in more than 67 branches with an outreach spreading all over Lebanon, from Beirut and its suburbs, to the Bekaa valley, the South, Mount Lebanon and the North.rnrn
You are receiving this update because you helped fund a loan of Kiva's Togolese field partner, WAGES. My name is Kathrin Gerner and I have been working with WAGES as a Kiva fellow for the past two months.rn Kiva Field Partners and Kiva Fellows rnKiva works with field partners like WAGES because it does not have the resources to evaluate loan requests, disburse loans and collect repayments in the 60 countries in which it operates. The field partners take care of all this, and Kiva helps them fund a portion of their loans through its website with the help of lenders like you!rnKiva fellows are unpaid volunteers, who work with field partners on site for a period of three to four months. The types of projects vary, but they usually include a borrower verification (to make sure the information you see on the website is accurate), projects to improve the quality of information provided by the field partner and projects to help the field partner work more efficiently with Kiva. Click here to find out more about the Kiva fellows program. rn WAGES – A Kiva Field Partner in Togo rnWAGES was founded in 1994 as a project of CARE International Togo with the initial goal of meeting the socioeconomic needs of 3,900 Lomé women during a period of three years, hence the name: W omen and A ssociations for G ain both E conomic and S ocial. Since then, WAGES has grown into a full-fledged microfinance institution, in fact Togo's second largest, with offices across the country. Along with a wide range of savings and loan products, WAGES offers its clients training programs in basic literacy, health care (HIV/AIDS, malaria), and business-related subjects (business management, marketing, accounting). rnThe loan you helped fund was likely uploaded by Carine (second from left), Kiva coordinator, or Christian (third from left), Marketing Manager, after a profile form had been completed and a photo had been taken by one of WAGES many loan officers and transported to the head office via motorcycle courier. Carine also reports the repayments you receive on your loan every month. If you recently received an update on your loan, Lala (on right), Marketing intern, may have written it.rnEven though WAGES now also offers loans to male clients, women still make up the largest portion of its portfolio. According to CGAP (http://cgap.org), microfinance can be a good tool for empowering women: "Many qualitative and quantitative studies have documented how access to financial services has improved the status of women within the family and the community. Women have become more assertive and confident. […] Women own assets, including land and housing, and play a stronger role in decision making."rn Yawa – A Kiva Borrower in Togo rnHaving visited several clients of WAGES, I can only confirm this statement. Yawa, a Kiva borrower who works as a full-time accountant and produces juice on the side, gives me two reasons why she has taken on this additional business. rn"It gives me great satisfaction that my husband knows that my business is contributing to our household finances," Yawa says and continues by showing me her bookkeeping. Depending on the time of year, her monthly revenues add up to between $200 and $300. After deducting her expenses (ingredients and a part-time employee) and her loan repayment, Yawa makes a monthly profit of $40 to $70, which is enough to buy a sack of rice at just under $40. "When my husband comes home from work, the rice is already there. He doesn't have to give me the money to buy it," she explains. rnThe freedom to buy something for herself without relying on pocket money provided by her husband is Yawa's second reason for running her juice making business. If it was a good month, Yawa allows herself to spend leftover money on small items for herself. "In Africa, if your husband doesn't give you money for a slip, you don't buy a slip. But if you have your own income, you can just buy yourself a slip without having to ask," she says.rn Poovi – A Kiva Borrower in Togo rnPoovi, another Kiva borrower, has built a thriving tailoring business with her loan money. Before the loan, she had one employee and was selling baby clothes at her neighborhood market. After the loan, she now has two employees and is selling to boutiques at the Grand Marché in Lomé, Togo's largest market. Poovi is not only earning an income for herself, but she has also created employment for two other women.rnPoovi's husband, a computer engineer, who was previously the main provider of the family, is very supportive of his wife's business. He is even is working on a website to promote Poovi's clothes on the Internet, which is a true novelty in Togo. "For now, we will only show the clothes on the website," he says, "but I am hoping to find a way to process payments, so we can also sell the clothes online in the future."rnBoth Poovi and Yawa wish to thank you, the Kiva lenders, for providing the opportunity to develop their businesses. Poovi even insisted that I come back to visit her because she wanted to custom make some baby clothes for me as a present. Yawa hopes that you will consider lending to other women in Togo and around the world to provide the same opportunity for them.rnOn behalf of WAGES and all its clients, I thank you again for your generous support. rnTo find out more about WAGES, visit its Kiva partner page or the WAGES website. Or show your support by making another loan to one of its borrowers or joining the WAGES lending team !rnKind Regards,rnKathrin Gernerrn
Fuimos a visitar a la señora Yanis. Ella pertenece al Banco Comunal Mujeres Organizadas, vive en el cantón Rocafuerte. Esta localidad se conoce por la gran variedad de dulces que preparan sus habitantes y por ser una tierra bien hospitalaria. Ella se dedica a la venta de frutas y legumbres. Con el crédito que recibió de Kiva compró frutas, legumbres y verduras, nos cuenta que el crédito si le ayudo de mucho ya que gracias al crédito se pudo financiar y comprar sus productos de contado y esto le ayudo a tener mejores ganancias. En cuanto a los pagos nos cuenta que tuvo un atraso ya estuvo un poco enferma y tuvo que utilizar el dinero para medicinas pero un a vez que soluciono este inconveniente cancelo todo. En lo que se refiere a su salud nos cuenta que está bien gracias a Dios. Sus sueños son tener una gran tienda en su casa. Fue un placer pasar el tiempo con Yanis. Gracias por apoyarla y apoyar a Fundación Espoir.rnrnrn
Dear Lenders,rnrnThe Php20,000 loan has already been disbursed to Wilma. She has utilized the loan to purchase new computer units and stocks of personal products and items needed in her business. She looks forward to this financial increase with gladness and thankfulness for your generosity.rnrnIf you would like to support CCT, join our new lending team:rnhttp://www.kiva.org/community/viewTeam?team_id=9184rnrnFor more information on CCT, please visit: http://www.kiva.org/about/aboutPartner?id=144rn
Darisuren appreciates Kiva and their lenders' help for her business. She received 2,500,000 MNT loan from Xacbank, Kiva's Mongolian partner MFI, in March 2011. He bought barberry devices with the loan and cosmetics. She made 6 people to study in cosmetic's course. This month the people will graduate so that they will use the devices. With the daily income she is fulfilling her family needs. rn rn rn rn rn rn rn rn
Thank you for lending to an entrepreneur through Fundación Mario Santo Domingo (FMSD), one of Kiva's two field partners in Colombia, which serves the communities in and around Barranquilla, Cartagena, and Bogotá. FMSD has been a Kiva field partner for 17 months now, and your loans of nearly $800,000 have enabled over 1000 entrepreneurs to start and grow their businesses. As a Kiva Fellow with FMSD from January through May of this year, I was able to see firsthand the impact that microfinance, combined with the strong social programs offered by FMSD, have on the life of Kiva borrowers.rn rnFMSD celebrated their 50th year of operations during 2010, and has been working with micro-entrepreneurs since 1984. Microfinance programs aside, their project list is broad and touches a huge variety of people as they aim to improve the lives of Colombians, especially in the poorest communities. Some of their projects have included constructing clinics and schools, developing an ecological institute on Barú island, supporting a fishing and farming cooperative, as well as a large variety of educational programs for the nation's youth. Their microfinance programs offer a wide range of products that can be customized based on loan size, amount and many other variables to fit the client's exact needs. Loans are currently available to finance business needs, home improvements, training programs and business formalizations procedures, education, as well as for mortgages. rnrnThe FMSD mortgages are part of a very interesting and large program being undertaken by FMSD called "Sueños y Oportunidades" or Dreams and Opportunities. Since 1984 FMSD has been helping construct homes for people living in the worst housing conditions in the country. To date they have constructed over 14,000 homes and in 2008 began two new projects in Barranquilla (Villas de San Pablo) and Cartagena (Ciudad de Bicentenario) to build 20,000 and 25,000 subsidized homes, respectively, over the next decade. The homes receive approximately a 40% subsidy from the local and national government and require only 10% down for a family to move in; they are able to take out a 7-10 year loan at low interest rate that they would never be able to receive from a commercial lending source. FMSD does not only focus on building homes, but also a community surrounding them–playgrounds, parks, computer centers, and community areas are planned into the design from the beginning. rn rnNot only is FMSD providing a unique source of financing that would unlikely be available to the intended families, but also an opportunity to start new businesses as the communities are constructed and expand. While visiting Ciudad de Bicentenario I was able to visit Kiva lender Nelson Soto Montoya's home, which has a small hardware store in the front. Nelson and his wife began by selling candy and cell phone minutes from their home, but saw an opportunity to expand their business as people moved into their new homes and began to modify them to fit their family's exact needs. With a loan from FMSD and Kiva he was able to purchase products like cement, bricks, and PVC pipe accessories to offer his customers. Nelson told me he has seen his business grow as new families move into the housing community and hopes to continue to expand his store as the demand increases. rn rnFMSD's microfinance is much more than just loans; clients such as Nelson receive access to constant support from their loan officer, as well as access to a variety of programs and workshops offered free of charge to all clients. To begin, clients have the opportunity to attend a basic loan seminar, which explains basic financial and credit information that may not be common sense to a person who has never had a loan in the past; safe ways to guard their loan and business earnings and reasons to pay on time are just a few of the topics covered in this class. FMSD also offers weekly classes on topics such as communication, business development, marketing, and technology. While the workshops are not required for participation in the program, some clients, such as Merys María Mejía Velasquez, enthusiastically attend all they can as they strive to grow their business.rnrnMerys' story for me really showcases how microfinance, combined with strong social and organizational support, can change the lives of borrowers and their family. Merys lived in San Pablo, located in the Santender providence, until 2002 when her family was forced to move because of violence from illegal, armed, far-right groups that still control parts of Colombia to this day. Her family left everything and relocated to Barranquilla; she found a job washing dishes while her husband sold candy and cigarettes in the park. Through a program offered in part by FMSD specifically for people displaced by violence with new job training. After 401 hours of courses and an initial loan to buy equipment, Merys opened up her own bakery out of her home. Through constant hard work, 16 loans from FMSD (her latest a Kiva loan), and one of the most positive attitudes I have ever witnessed in my life, Merys has been able to purchase her own home and expand her business to the point where she has brought on an employee to help make deliveries. Merys credits the programming and loans offered by FMSD, and now Kiva, as being one of the biggest driving forces what she has today and enabling her to do things like support her daughter's studies at a university in Bogotá. (If you would like to read more about Merys and how microfinance can help those displaced by conflict, please read by blog post here)rnrnWorking with FMSD offered me the opportunity to witness some of the real success stories face-to-face that occur when microfinance is supported by strong social programs and the potential Kiva loans have to change the lives of lenders. Please continue to support FMSD and Colombian lenders: make a loan to a FMSD borrower or join the Friends of FMSD lending team.rnrnJohn Gwillim, KF14rnrn
Margarita, coordinadora del grupo tres pino es una mujer trabajadora quien es agricultura de maíz, frijol y yuca. Ella invirtio el crédito en abono, limpieza y cultivo de maiz, frijol y yuca.
Naira runs a bakery, producing Armenian bread. Her first Kiva loan was borrowed to buy flour and sugar in bulk, just before the prices on many food items, including these go up. The loan helped Naira to sell the bread for the same price.
I'm a Pittsburgh native and a public health nut that recently quit her job working in a non profit in Boston, Massachusetts to serve as a Kiva Fellow. And I was fortunate to be placed with Microfinanzas Prisma (MFP) in Lima, Peru at a very exciting moment. This year marks Prisma's 25th anniversary. Founded in 1986, Prisma is celebrating 25 years of providing social and financial services to clients in Peru. MFP, the credit department of the non-profit Prisma, was formed in 1994 "to provide integrated financial and non-financial services to disadvantaged communities to strengthen their capacities and promote sustainable social and economic development." They target the most vulnerable populations living in rural and per-urban areas and close to 30% of MFP's clients are living below Peru's national poverty line. MFP works to help clients increase their income by providing comprehensive services, which include not only financial services, but also non-financial ones, mainly education and training activities.
You are receiving this update because you have loaned money to a client of Microfinanzas Prisma. Kiva works with field partners, or microfinance organizations, around the world. Once a partnership is established, this organization can then post client profiles to the Kiva.org site and then you can carefully read through and select which client you want to lend to. MFP has had a successful relationship with Kiva for almost 4 years, making it one of the longest running partnerships on Kiva.org. During this time MFP has uploaded $5,948,250 worth of loans to Kiva with a 1.41% delinquency rate and a 0% default rate.
Kiva Fellows are paired with microfinance organizations for three to four months to fulfill a variety of tasks, all of which help to promote transparency between the field partner, Kiva, and you, the lender. During my fellowship I worked to complete a borrower verification (BV) for MFP. A borrower verification is like a mini audit that happens twice to once a year depending on the length of the relationship with Kiva and the default/delinquency rates. Kiva selects a random sample of ten clients that represents an organization's portfolio and sends it to us fellows. We, in turn, visit each and every client on the list to verify that they are who they say they are, that they indeed received a loan for the amount posted on Kiva's website, and to talk to them about their business and loan use.
Unlike your traditional auditor, I have not been passing my days sitting in offices shuffling through paperwork. Instead, I have spent my three months been traveling deep into the Andes and the jungles of Peru to find the clients. I rode my first motorcycle to travel two and a half hours into the Andes, I took shared taxis that drove through rivers in the jungle and spent my days and nights traveling by bus between the headquarters in Lima and the branch offices that do the ground work of vetting and interviewing clients to appear on the website, take their photo, and write up their story.
I have met a number of amazing MFP clients during my time as a fellow, but I will never forget meeting MFP client, Rosa Vargas, in Lima my first week as a Kiva Fellow.
Rosa is 56 years old and preparing to open her own restaurant in her house in the next year. How many of you would embark on a new business in your 50's? I don't know that I would. But as Rosa explained, she had been washing clothes for neighbors. The job was physically demanding on her and not very profitable. And she believed she had great recipes to share with everyone, "recetas muy ricas" [very tasty recipes] as she described. So, she did what anyone wanting to start her own business would do. She asked around about where she could get some start up money. And she got connected with PRISMA.
I talked to Rosa in the kitchen of another building because her house was under construction. The walls were being painted and she hoped to put in tiling and tables and chairs for her customers to sit and enjoy their meal. She invited me back to her kitchen as we continued to talk. And I snapped a few shots and showed her the photos I took. She laughed and grabbed my arm as she covered her mouth with her hand. Her happiness was overwhelming for me.
I will never forget my meeting with Rosa. Part of what drew me to KIVA was the idea of female empowerment that Rosa embodies. That women, with the help of MFIs like PRISMA, can realize their dreams of owning their own business at any stage in their life and attain the financial independence to care for themselves and their children. After meeting Rosa this idea I had became a reality.
Thank you all for supporting the hardworking clients and staff of MFP. To get more involved join MFP's lending team "Friends of Microfinanzas Prisma" to receive more updates from the field.
In the past, Chantha did not have her own motorized hand tiller; she had to spend a lot of money for renting fees very often. With motorized hand tiller which she bought with money from the loan, she does not need to pay for renting fees any more. Chantha would like to thank Maxima and Kiva lenders for funding this loan.
Thank you for your loan. Henry used his entire loan to purchase DAP fertilizers and fresh milk for resale. He says he faced difficulty in repaying his loan because the production of milk was low during the months due to lack of rain in the area. His business did not expand much because he was unable to sell more due to low supply of milk. He hopes to expand his business to greater heights and also educate his children.
Thank you very much for your support of borrowers in the Philippines.
As a Kiva Fellow, I recently had the opportunity to work with Kiva partner, the Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation (NWTF) in Bacolod City, the city of smiles. NWTF's main microfinance arm, Project Dungganon (meaning honorable), from which all Kiva loans are administered, serves ~80,000 clients through 42 branch offices - predominantly in the Visayas region of the Philippines.
While working there, I visited 13 of Project Dungganon's branch offices, and spoke with numerous borrowers. What stood out to me most in my conversations with these women is the drive they possess to improve their businesses and their lives. Guerlita, a borrower whom I met in Negros Occidental operates four different businesses – a donut vending business, a sari sari (general) store, a trisikad business (a trisikad is a bicycle with a sidecar attached to it, and is a common mode of transportation in the Philippines), and a charcoal briquette business. When I asked Guerlita about her hopes for the future, she didn't hesitate to tell me about her dream of setting up a vinegar business. When she has more time and more capital, Guerlita hopes to establish this venture – in which she would ferment coconut water to make vinegar, and then sell it to wholesalers. Her entrepreneurial spirit and hard-working nature captured me. Guerlita is a woman full of ideas, and working her absolute hardest to improve her family's life. Hers is a story that confirms to me that microfinance can make a big difference.
Working at NWTF, the organization itself also inspired me in its approach in serving the poor. While I could write pages about its many client-centered activities, I want to highlight specifically two of the initiatives that have stood out to me.
First, there is the notion of the income-generating survival skill, or more commonly referred to as 'the IGSS'. Regardless of how poor one is, a person has acquired skills in their lifetime that can help them successfully run a business. With this belief, NWTF has all clients complete an IGSS assessment when applying for a loan – where they, together with their loan officer, identify their skills and generate potential business ideas, empowering the member from the get-go. This is perhaps most effective for prospective clients who do not have businesses, a segment of the poor population that can often be overlooked by lending institutions.
Second, NWTF is committed to helping its members in their most vulnerable times. This is perhaps best illustrated in my meeting with Kiva borrower, Lucy. When I met Lucy, she appeared happy and healthy, belying the fact that her and her two sons had recently been hospitalized due to a severe stomach illness. While many in her situation may have been unable to pay for medical care, or forced to borrow from friends and relatives, Lucy was not indebted to anyone when she left the hospital. To pay the hospital costs upfront, Lucy withdrew money from her individual compulsory fund (a type of savings account that can only be withdrawn under emergency circumstances), while she waited for her insurance claim to be processed. Both the savings fund and insurance are services provided by NWTF in its effort to help clients in their greatest times of need.
NWTF is an institution that continually strives to better serve its clients throughout the Philippines. I have been honored to work alongside the organization's dedicated staff, and with NWTF's clients, who continually strive to improve their lives.
Below is a picture I took while visiting Kiva borrower, Florentina, in Negros Occidental. Androw (a member of the special projects team at NWTF), Florentina, and myself are pictured standing in front of the crates that Florentina uses in her pepsi wholesale venture.
Thank you again for your support of borrowers in the Philippines like Florentina, Lucy, and Guerlita.
Ndyareeba Patrick is a coffee wholesale businessman. He says he used the proceeds from this loan to purchase more bags of coffee that he has been able to resell. His business has been able to expand in terms of better sales profits.
Fuimos a visitar a la señora Ana Panta. Ella pertenece al Banco Comunal Las Increíbles, vive en la ciudad de Bahía de Caraquez. Esta localidad se conoce por las hermosas playas que bañan a esta ciudad, por su gastronomía, por la calidez de su gente que la hacen única en el país. Ella tiene un pequeño restaurante y además vende ropa. Con el crédito que recibió de Kiva compró dos licuadoras y además ropa de todo tipo. Nos cuenta que con las licuadoras aumento la venta de los batidos de fruta y en lo que se refiere a la venta de ropa la temporada de Navidad y AÑO Nuevo fue excelente. En cuanto a su salud nos cuenta que su hijo menor estuvo un poco enfermo pero nada de gravedad, con enfermedades temporales. Nos cuenta que hasta la fecha no ha tenido ningún atraso. Le preocupa un poco el invierno ya que todo es más difícil en estos días con las lluvias. Sus sueños son tener un gran restaurante y un bazar. Fue un placer pasar el tiempo con Ana. Gracias por apoyarla y apoyar a Fundación Espoir
Thank you for supporting Kiva borrowers in Bolivia through CIDRE. It's been an amazing experience working as a Kiva Fellow and dedicating part of my four-month stay in Bolivia to the staff and mission of CIDRE. I wanted to take a minute to tell you a little bit more about Kiva's Cochabamba based field partner and the work they are doing, particularly for the dairy farmers in the rural areas surrounding the city.
A Thorough Understanding of the Clients and Their Business Activities
CIDRE provides funding for small business owners working in both services and production, but the majority of the loans they distribute are within the farming and livestock sector. They offer a wide variety of products tailored to their clients' needs in an effort to fulfill their mission statement, which is to contribute to the sustainable development of small agricultural producers and micro-and small businesses in rural and peri-urban areas.
Because CIDRE's work is heavily focused on the area of dairy production, they have acquired a knowledge and understanding of the sector that allows them to effectively serve dairy farmers that have historically been excluded from financial services. The institution knows, for example, what a head of cattle costs, and they are easily able to assess how much milk their individual clients can produce, based on how many heads of cattle they have, the quality of machinery, etc. For this reason, they can confidently and responsibly lend to a dairy farmer using only the client's cows as collateral, whereas rivaling financial institutions might require a house or automobile as collateral.
CIDRE's loan officers have observed that farmers are able to more efficiently produce better quality milk subsequent to taking out a loan. CIDRE witnesses its clients working harder and become more responsible because they take their debt very seriously and want to pay it off on time. People are also empowered by the fact that they are now worthy of credit and that there is someone looking out for their interests.
In even more remote areas of the department of Cochabamba, CIDRE works hard to bring financial services to a number of small villages through their regional offices. One of their 11 regional offices is located in Colomi, where clients' main activity is growing and selling crops such as potatoes and beans. Since 2002, two of CIDRE's loan officers have been based in the Colomi office and spend their days traveling great distances to visit with borrowers in the region, saving the clients the time and expense involved with traveling far to make payments on their loan.
Catching up with CIDRE's Kiva Coordinator, Veronica Aponte
In addition to her position as a loan officer with her own portfolio of clients, Veronica Aponte works as the Kiva Coordinator for CIDRE. She has worked for the organization for one year, and only took on the responsibility of Kiva about three months ago. When I asked her what her favorite part about working at CIDRE has been, without hesitation she explained the satisfaction she gets from getting to know the clients on a very personal level. She described the deep relationship she is able to build with clients through the monthly visits.
As opposed to a more traditional financial institution that merely collects the monthly payments from its clients, Veronica is trained to inquire into the progress and condition of the client and his/her family and, if need be, help them to solve any problems they may be having. Not only has she built relationships with the clients she serves, Veronica has also, in many cases, gotten to know their neighbors well, and thus feels truly connected to the neighborhoods in which CIDRE works. Her favorite part of the job is the feeling that she is working for social change, rather than just focusing on the provision of credit.
Kiva partnered with CIDRE in July 2009. The zero interest funding from Kiva has allowed CIDRE to expand its outreach and offer many clients small loans with lower interest rates than previously possible. Veronica notes that she particularly enjoys her interactions with Kiva borrowers; because they take out smaller loans relative to CIDRE's other clients, they are often even more open to sharing about their lives, businesses and experiences.
Vanessa Ayala Villarroel
The best part about working as a Kiva Fellow is without doubt being able to visit borrowers. Last week I had the chance to catch up with Vanessa Ayala Villarroel, one of CIDRE's Kiva borrowers working in dairy production. She had just finished paying off her $1,000 dollar loan. Although some of her payments were late, an obviously good relationship with her loan officer helped her to get back on her feet and pay off the loan in full.
At the time Vanessa applied for the loan, she was splitting her time between her dairy business and studying at the university. The birth of her baby four months ago forced her to leave the university, but her business continues to grow and she now has 12 heads of cattle. Most dairy farmers in her area sell their milk to Pil, one of Bolivia's largest distributors of dairy products; Vanessa sells part of the milk her cows produce to Pil, but is also involved in the manual process of producing cheese and yoghurt, which she sells independently.
Vanessa's loan officer explained to me that it is typical in the region for parents to give their children a head of cattle to start their own dairy business and gain their independence, while they study at the university simultaneously. Whereas some of these young people finish their studies and switch to a different career, others choose to continue as dairy farmers, usually growing their business and purchasing additional heads of cattle.
Vanessa doubts whether she'll go back to school now that she has her baby and business to take care of, but she has big dreams for her business and really enjoys the entrepreneurial side of running a business. In addition to growing her dairy business, she hopes to one day open a store in the city center.
Thank you so much for your support of Bolivian entrepreneurs like Vanessa!
To search for currently fundraising CIDRE loans on Kiva, click here.
No currently fundraising clients? Please check back soon! In the meantime, you can join CIDRE's Kiva Lending Team .
Visitamos a Vida Luz pues siempre está buscando la manera de mejorar su actividad económica es ofrecer los servicios de videos juegos. Ya que por medio de su familia es que su negocio ha transcurrido de generación en generación.
Ella utilizo el financiamiento para capital de trabajo y así compro nuevos discos de juegos, controles y proporcionarle mantenimiento a sus televisores. Pues siempre está al tanto de los productos nuevos que sus clientes le solicitan, ella ha demostrado ser una persona confiable que siempre está pensando en mejorar su condición.
Se siente muy feliz con esta experiencia pues esta oportunidad le ayudo a crecer con este negocio, por lo que siempre está pensando en ampliar cada día más su actividad.
Espera seguir trabajando duro y más adelante espera ampliar su pequeño negocio, ya que es el único medio que tiene para sobrevivir.
Your loan to a Microfund Togo borrower was recently defaulted. To learn more about the reasons for this default, please visit Microfund Togo's field partner page.
Thank you for your ongoing support of Kiva and its entrepreneurs at XacBank, a field partner in Mongolia. Just recently, XacBank marked the two year anniversary of its partnership with Kiva. Over this time, you and other lenders have assisted over 2,950 entrepreneurs with $3,400,000 USD in loans. As a Kiva Fellow, I've been working at XacBank over the past six months and want to share a few of their interesting programs – the creation of green loans, the spread of mobile banking, and the promotion of organic products.
Oyunchimeg, one of XacBank's eco loan clients, began sewing sheets from her ger, a traditional Mongolian felt tent, in 2009. Running her small business from her home means that she must simultaneously keep a fire going in order to stay warm. At the beginning of winter, Oyunchimeg took a microloan from XacBank in order to buy more environmentally-friendly fuel in bulk. Oyunchimeg said that the new fuel helped her save money on fuel costs in the long run and also helped her run her business from home.
As well as in the environmental sector, XacBank has been innovative in the mobile banking area. XacBank created a mobile banking service named AMAR, which is available in some of the most remote areas of Mongolia. Clients no longer have to travel to one of XacBank's physical branches; Clients can use a combination of cell phones and over 3,000 cash-handling agents, such as remote grocery stores and trusted individuals, to make a variety of transactions such as depositing, withdrawing, and transferring money.
Altantsetseg is both a Kiva entrepreneur and AMAR mobile banking user. She operates a small business selling meat in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar. Altantsetseg says that she's a very busy woman running her small business, and normally doesn't have too much time to go to the bank office. Since becoming a user of the AMAR mobile banking service, Altantsetseg says it has really saved her time and made her business more efficient. She can take payments and send payments to and from her partners through AMAR.
XacBank has partnered with many organizations such as the Mongolian National Chamber of Commerce, large energy businesses and national media organizations to promote a project named Organic Mongolia. This project promotes organic goods grown and produced locally in Mongolia. It supports micro-businesses by providing low interest rate loans with no collateral requirements.
In addition to the loans, the project has many activities such as mass media advertising for the organic goods, training for entrepreneurs by professionals, certification of organic goods, and large scale trade fairs. So far, Organic Mongolia has assisted a wide variety of businesses like bee farms, greenhouses, soy bean production, and animal nutrition products. Click here to watch a video of some of Organic Mongolia's activities.
Recently, all of the Organic Mongolia partners volunteered one day to assist a local greenhouse in bringing in their harvest. The XacBank team cleared the greenhouse of cucumber vines and roots, and then planted a batch of lettuce. While the team members worked in the greenhouse, the media sponsors produced a small segment to promote organic farming and organic businesses to the Mongolian public.
The staff at XacBank are committed to reducing poverty in Mongolia through innovative activities like the ones I've shared with you. Thank you again for your continued support of Kiva entrepreneurs, and, in turn, the Kiva field partners that disburse the loans in Mongolia. Please feel free to join the XacBank lending team on Kiva.
I just returned from a fun and interesting three month Kiva Fellowship in Ecuador. During this fellowship I had the opportunity to work with Kiva field partner Fundación ESPOIR (ESPOIR). Since you have previously supported Kiva borrowers through this field partner, I thought you might be interested to learn more about my experiences working for ESPOIR and meeting some of their borrowers.
ESPOIR has been a Kiva field partner for 19 months. Thanks to you and many other lenders, during this period 3,418 loans were funded, adding up to a total of $1,672,400!
Thanks to your help, ESPOIR continues its efforts to fulfill its mission, which is "to contribute to the economic, social, and healthy development of poor small business women entrepreneurs in Ecuador, and to provide them with micro-credit and education so that they might strengthen their capacity to generate income, in search of the well-being of women, children and their families."
I first worked at ESPOIR's administrative headquarters in Quito. Here I learned about their products and services, and the philosophy behind their program. Even though their individual loan business is growing, ESPOIR's main product is village bank loans combined with education. The loan officers provide this education during the monthly village bank meetings. The combination of credit and education differentiates ESPOIR from other microfinance institutions, and the impact is huge, particularly for those borrowers who are able to fully implement their business training. As an additional benefit to their borrowers, ESPOIR also offers health services and education.
My favorite aspect of the Kiva Fellowship was meeting the borrowers. When I visited the field office in Portoviejo, I saw how the theory I had learned at ESPOIR's headquarters was put into practice. Yadira Graciela and Rosa Melida are two Kiva borrowers I met who put their loans and business training to good use. In addition to lifting themselves out of poverty, their businesses create jobs, and thus contribute to the development of their community.
Yadira Graciela Villamar Pinargote is a 31 year old clothing designer and mother of two. She has been a member of the "Nueva Portoviejo" village bank for over 4 years. With the help of the loans and education from ESPOIR, she has grown her business and now employs another person. In 2010 she participated in a provincial haute couture contest and took first prize!
54 year old Rosa Melida Aguirre Espinoza is the president of the "New Generation" village bank, and has been a member of ESPOIR for 18 years. Rosa Melida raises chickens and grows melons, rice and corn. Thanks to the trainings and her loans she has purchased additional farmland, expanded her business, and now employs two people.
The success stories of entrepreneurs like Yadira and Rosa show the power of microfinance to transform people's lives and communities. That is why I want to thank you for supporting Kiva borrowers through Fundación ESPOIR; without your funding these stories would not be possible. To find the loans that are currently fundraising, and enable more entrepreneurs to create successful stories, click here now.
My name is Frederic Billou and I have had the privilege of working with the staff of Alidé over the past three months as a Kiva fellow in Benin. As you may know, all entrepreneur profiles on Kiva's web site are posted by local field partners (microfinance institutions), organizations that lend to the working poor to help lift themselves out of poverty.
You are receiving this e-mail because you have made a Kiva loan through Alidé and we thought you might be interested in learning more about this Kiva partner and its impact on borrowers in Benin.
Started in 2006, Alidé made its reputation from being the first MFI to serve the two poorest neighborhoods in Cotonou: Placodji and Akpakpadodomé, which are essentially shantytown slums along the polluted lagoon which divides Cotonou in two. Alidé has now expanded its presence past Cotonou (Benin's economic capital) and into Allada, Porto-Novo (the administrative capital), Abome-Calavi and Cocotome.
In these communities, Alidé works with marginalized people who have previously been excluded from formal credit and savings systems: women, widows, refugees, people with handicaps, people living with AIDS, and others. Alidé offers not only micro-loans (including 0% interest "Coup de Pouce" loans for the very, very poor), but also well-needed savings options, free training sessions on health, finance, and loan management, and on-site social workers.
Over the past 3 months, I spent a lot of time visiting Kiva borrowers and saw first-hand the impact of the loans you funded on Kiva.
I want to take this opportunity to thank you for supporting entrepreneurs in Benin and share the links below, which points to a couple of blog posts I wrote to document my time here in Benin. I hope you enjoy finding out more about the daily life of Kiva borrowers in Benin and the role of Alidé on the ground:
Заем был использован для увеличения товарооборота. Его товар на пятьдесят процентов увеличился. В настоящее время он продолжает свою деятельность. Весной он хочет взять кредит для того чтобы привезти товар с Китая.
On July 16th, 2009, you helped fund a loan amount of $550 to Naomi. A SAT staff member recently caught up with her to ask her about her loan experience and this is what she had to say:
Naomi was able to buy fabrics of all kinds and other sewing accessories for her sewing business. She says her business is doing well. Naomi saves and invests the profits in her children's education. She has no problem with her repayments and wants another loan to buy sewing accessories in bulk.
I was recently a Kiva Fellow at MAXIMA for 13 weeks in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. During this time I had the chance to meet dozens of borrowers, hear their stories and learn more about how microfinance works on the ground and what sets MAXIMA apart from other MFIs. Since you've made a loan through MAXIMA in the past, I'd like to share with you some of what I learned about the organization during my time there.
Lending to women In Cambodia women manage the money in every family. Even when men run the business, the women manage the finances. We joke that when payday comes men must give their paycheck to their wives with the envelope still sealed. We call this "thonikea bropon" or "wife bank." It's easy to make deposits but much more difficult to make withdrawals! This is because women are seen as more responsible with money in Cambodia.
MAXIMA make loans to both men and women but believe that loans to women can often benefit the family more. When a family's income is not sufficient to meet their needs, often their only option is to send the women of the family to the city to work in the garment factories. Many of these families are located in the provinces far from the city so they are often forced to travel long distances in unsafe conditions, or rent inadequate housing in Phnom Penh. The pay is very low, around $55-60 a month, which forces them to work overtime. Starting or expanding a small business can be a good alternative.
Another issue is that rural families often take their daughters out of school due to school and transport costs and in order to have them help with the family business or farming. Helping these families boost their incomes increases the chances that their daughters will be allowed to continue their schooling.
MAXIMA hopes to contribute to the social good by helping to encourage small businesses. When women can work at home or in their village rather than in the factories, they have more time to spend with their families, look after their health and take their children to school.
MAXIMA's Kiva Coordinator MAXIMA lenders are probably already familiar with with our Kiva Coordinator, Sophal Ros. Sophal has been working at MAXIMA for almost two years and during that time has posted 1,334 loans and 1,359 journals (her journaling rate is one of the highest on Kiva).
Sophal is 25 and hails from an area of Kandal province where MAXIMA provides loans. She came to Phnom Penh in grade 12 to study. She was sponsored by an NGO, Association Française de Solidarité, that provides housing, food and school fees to poor students from the provinces who would not otherwise be able to continue their education.
Sophal has earned her Associate's degree in IT systems and network administration and is now in her final year of university to receive her Bachelor's degree in IT at Norton University. In addition to her 9-10 hour workdays at MAXIMA, she goes to school every weeknight and all day on Saturday.
One of Sophal's main duties at MAXIMA is to get written updates from the credit officers about clients and translate them into English for the wider Kiva audience. She says she has appreciated having so many Kiva Fellows to practice her English with. "I don't think my English is good but I can communicate with foreigners, and I can just talk to them. If it is wrong I ask them to correct my grammar or ask for help with vocabulary."
Sophal has read and enjoyed all of your responses to the journals she has written. Her message to Kiva lenders is "Thank you so much for supporting not only MAXIMA borrowers but all of the poor Cambodian borrowers on Kiva!"
All the best for 2011,
Lina Goldberg MAXIMA Mikroheranhvatho Co. Ltd. Phnom Penh, Cambodia
I apologize for the delay in updating you on the progress of Kosar parveen who received loan for her family business. Through the loan amount, they purchased raw material in bulk and made plastic bottles in larger quantity. This has made a quick increase in their profits and a good growth of their business. Kosar is very happy as now her family is living in far better financial condition. She is now able to save some money from the profits every month for rainy days. She has returned the entire loan back in installments. She is very grateful to each of you for your loan & hopes that you will continue to support her fellow Asasah associates on KIVA.
I apologize for the delay in updating you on the progress of Kosar parveen who received loan for her family business. Through the loan amount, they purchased raw material in bulk and made plastic bottles in larger quantity. This has made a quick increase in their profits and a good growth of their business. Kosar is very happy as now her family is living in far better financial condition. She is now able to save some money from the profits every month for rainy days. She has returned the entire loan back in installments. She is very grateful to each of you for your loan & hopes that you will continue to support her fellow Asasah associates on KIVA.
Thank you for supporting entrepreneurs in Paraguay. My name is Carlos Cruz Montaño and I recently concluded my work as a Kiva Fellow with Fundación Paraguaya (FP) in Asunción.
I have to confess that before this trip I had very little knowledge about Paraguay; my first web searches returned only information about the national soccer team but little information about the country. As compared to its neighbors, Paraguay is not a tourist destination and you probably won't find a travel guide solely dedicated to the country. Its main sector, the one that creates the most wealth, is agriculture and the majority of its exports are cotton fibers, soybeans, vegetables oils, flours, cereals, meat, and wood.
If you were to visit, you would notice on one hand that roads are not great, there are no trains in the country, there are not very many high-rises in the city and just a few look to be in good shape, and at many traffic lights people and children clean windshields or do tricks to earn a few coins.
On the other hand, you would notice that people are warm, welcoming, hard working and are finding ways to make a living, either by learning a trade and offering a service or by selling something.
This is where Kiva, FP and the loans you are funding come into the picture. The entry-level loans for "Comités de Mujeres Emprendedoras" enable groups of women that may have no credit history or income but want to start something to provide a better future for their children, with the help of relatives, friends and neighbors. FP's methodology requires women to work and learn together as a team; every loan cycle they receive training on topics ranging from gratitude and happiness to personal budgets and savings. Through several visits I was able to witness the progress of established groups like Grupo Prosperidad and Comité Tesapeará. Prosperidad had a president/leader that encouraged every member to rotate through administrative posts; through these rotations the women learned to help and respect each other for the roles and responsibilities they take. With Tesapeará I witnessed how close the group had become when one of the members thanked the group with tears in her eyes for supporting her while her husband was hospitalized.
At the individual level, many entrepreneurs are accomplishing their goals with your continued support. Juana Paola Valientes is a single mom who first started selling lingerie to coworkers from a small table outside the market. Now she has a nice, well-stocked store in the San Lorenzo market and has no problems paying school expenses for her son. Santiago Piris Peralta bought equipment for his tire repair shop and with additional income has been doing home improvements that his wife and children now enjoy. Maria Teresa Cuquejo started her beauty salon with a single chair back in 2000, today she also offers make up, massages and a sauna and employs her daughter and three hairdressers.
Recently many of you funded the first round of student loans on Kiva, some of them through Fundación Paraguaya. While microfinance is growing quickly in Paraguay, the student population is still underserved. It's common for students in Paraguay to work part or full-time and go to school at night; your loans are helping them pay tuition, fees and books at the beginning of the semester.
The latest loans from FP on Kiva are to install and/or maintain water facilities; the first loan for this purpose was Junta de Saneamiento Saguazú. In Paraguay the government doesn't have the capacity to serve all; as a result, neighborhood associations and small entrepreneurs build their own water wells and small distribution systems. This is where FP and your funds come into play by providing more resources to these groups to give water access to more people.
Your loans are doing much more than providing economic opportunities to small and microentrepreneurs. They are creating support networks and strengthening communities through women's committees; they are helping create jobs and allowing children to attend and stay in school to have a much better outlook. It takes time, education and resources to have an impact in people's lives. These are just a few examples to show how, with your continued support, great things are happening and can continue to happen. To conclude, I want to thank you and Kiva for allowing me to represent you when visiting borrowers, it has truly been a pleasure to meet so many and witness the change these loans are bringing about.
Sincerely,
Carlos Cruz Montaño, Kiva Fellow 12th Class
* Officially established a democracy in 1992 after a 30+ years dictatorship that ended 1989.
* Its territory is similar in size to that of California in the United States or Germany.
* With over 6 million people it is as populated as the state of Massachusetts
* In 2008 it generated 16.9 billion USD, equivalent to half of Wyoming's GDP.
* Paraguay scored 2.1 and ranks 154 out of 180 countries -second to last in South America- in the 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International.
* 4 out of 10 Paraguayans are classified as poor and almost two live in indigence.
* Kiva's only field partner in the country, Fundación Paraguaya has been posting loans since mid-2007 and thanks to your support is now raising around $190,000 every month.
IMON would like to inform you that Burkhon has just paid back the last installment of his loan! Over the past 12 months Burkhon has been able to drastically improve his transportation business, and has seen increased profits. He hopes to be able to save enough money to make some improvements around his house, including a better floor and roof. Burkhon wants to thank you for supporting and believing in him. On behalf of IMON, thank you for your continued generosity!
Visitamos a Marcia por lo que se encontraba realizando en su vivienda, pues se siente muy feliz de haber realizado este financiamiento que le ha brindado el apoyo necesario, pues por medio de esta actividad ha podido proporcionarle a su familia el alimento diario.
Ella utilizo el financiamiento para capital de trabajo pues compro lo siguiente lápiz labial, pintura de uñas, perfumes, cremas entre otras cosas es así que logro obtener nuevos clientes.
Sus hijos siguen estudiando, pues ella se ha dedicado a trabajar duro, para proporcionarle todo lo necesario pues ha sido muy gratificante ya que gracias a ello ha mejorado ciertas cosas en su vivienda.
Ella siempre está pendiente de pagar sus cuotas en tiempo y forma, pues es una persona muy responsable y siempre está pendiente de las necesidades de su familia.
Marcia siempre sueña con establecer una pulpería, pues es su principal meta esto le ayudaría mas con los ingresos del hogar.
El banco comunal "Los Emprendedores" recibió su préstamo en julio de este año 2010. Fabiola compró ingredientes para cocinar pasteles y pan. A pesar que durante estos últimos meses de calor, ha tenido menos pedidos, ya que los productos se echan a perder más rápido, ha logrado mantener su negocio. Está a punto de cumplir su sueño de tener una amasandería y pastelería en el patio delantero de su casa, gracias a sus ahorros, a sus gestiones, al apoyo de su esposo y Fondo Esperanza, por lo cual está muy contenta y animada. Fondo Esperanza (FE) is currently the largest Chilean microfinance organization and is proudly Kiva's first microfinance partner in Chile! FE's mission is to provide solidarity micro-loans to economically vulnerable populations. Seeking to overcome poverty in Chile by incubating small businesses, FE provides a holistic range of microfinance services beyond the loans themselves, including entrepreneurial education and network promotion. To lend to another entrepreneur from Fondo Esperanza, follow this link http://partners.kiva.org/team/fondo_esperanza. Thank you for supporting FE!
Salamat (thank you) from the Alalay sa Kaunlaran (ASKI), Inc. family. I am writing to you from the colorful city of Cabanatuan, which is located in the Philippines, about four hours north of Manila. You are receiving this as you are one of the many generous lenders to a borrower in the Luzon district of the Philippines who are being served by ASKI.
In order to understand the success and growth ASKI has achieved, I met with the Executive Director, Rolando B. Victoria. Rolando, more commonly known as 'Boss Roly', is a very kind and compassionate leader. Honest, friendly, and inviting, he speaks modestly about his and ASKI's achievements: "In mid-2009, we confidently launched our Big Audacious Goal (BAG) called 3 by 14, where the number three (3) stands for a three billion Philippine peso loan portfolio which we target to release to 250,000 clients, and the number fourteen (14) represents the year 2014, in which we hope to achieve our goal." He enjoys talking about the growth and innovation ASKI is embracing, saying, "In 2009 we opened four new branches in marginalized municipalities and have nine more branches currently in the start-up phase bringing us to a total of 37 branches currently in operation." To better serve the rural clients, he explains: "ASKI became an authorized outlet of Nationlink to issue e-money cards to clients" so they can have easier access to capital. This growth of almost 30% in the number of ASKI branches over two years, coupled with the possibility of e-money banking, is setting the pace for ASKI to achieve the BAG by 2014.
I have also been able to meet with many of the Kiva borrowers during my travels to remote areas in the Luzon district within Region Two. During one such visit I was lucky enough to meet Yolanda Gonzales from Banquero, Reina Mercedes, Isabela. Yolanda runs a small general store outside her home where she sells everything from soap and shampoo to cigarettes and alcohol as she primarily sells to local farmers. With her 5,000 Philippine Peso (php) loan she was able to buy additional products to sell and increase the inventory of her store. Her number one product is a local beer, Red Horse (my favorite). Prior to the loan she was only able to purchase three cases of Red Horse for 1,023 php per trip to the market, but after the loan she is now able to purchase 6 cases. This has doubled her sales and decreased the costs associated with transportation to and from the market. With this additional income, she is saving and providing funding for her children's education as her son wants to be a doctor and her daughter a nurse. When asked why she chose ASKI & Kiva, she stated the low interest rates and great staff who care about the borrowers. Her large family was extremely friendly and brought us into their home to enjoy a marienda (afternoon snack). During the snack Yolanda amazed me with her knowledge of business: net vs. gross profit, fixed vs. variable costs, selling on credit and accounts receivable. She is a testament to successful micro-finance in action.
Another ASKI leader I am fond of and to whom I have had the privilege of speaking to on numerous occasions, is Maria "Mary" Calling, Chairman of the Board of Trustees. She is 70 years young with a spirit and energy that surpasses my own. Each time we chat she continues to amaze me with her love and compassion for helping others. During one such interaction, she spoke of her visit to an environmentally deprived area after a typhoon, where she recalled a conversation with a borrower: "When I think of that day, I can only remember the pain and utter helplessness… I wanted to go to the hospital, but we were in a sea of flood… I was in pain and could only pray to God for comfort." She had the entire table, including myself, on the brink of tears. She is truly a leader with self-less ambitions.
ASKI is doing many things for its borrowers and the community. Partnerships with Western Union, Crop Insurance, and Philhealth Insurance Philippines, allow ASKI to provide better services to their clients. Their adoption of Social Performance Management contributes to poverty outreach, client satisfaction, and client retention. Investment in internal programs such as ASKI MBA (Mutual Benefit Association) provides insurance to borrowers; ASKI Foundation provides social and environmental services free of charge to the indigenous (native) people; and ASKI Skills and Knowledge Institute offers basic, management, and specialized training to employees and borrowers.
ASKI's commitment to progress envisions a God-centered microfinance organization committed to serve the needy in Luzon through socio-economic development and wholistic transformation. Through the people and services, they are able to put mission into practice every day. During my short time at ASKI, I can say I have never worked with such positive and friendly people. They are truly one big happy family.
Don Rogelio, Considera que el aporte del préstamo le cambio el negocio, ya que realizo una buena inversión en materiales necesarios para fabricar su trabajo, él nos expresa su satisfacción y agradecimiento por esta oportunidad. Don Rogelio dice que cuenta con ánimos para seguir en su labor diaria y con las esperanzas de ver un taller grande con mayor capacidad es por eso que está aplicando para obtener un nuevo préstamo.
Ruth, quien siempre vive dedicada a la confección y venta de hamacas nos cuenta que el préstamo le dio la oportunidad de comprar los hilos para realizar el trabajo que tenía pendiente, además que se siente satisfecha por el servicio que recibió y que también se está dedicando a bordar manteles, y está en condiciones de adquirir un nuevo préstamo. Su objetivo es trabajar duro por mejorar su vivienda y el estudio de sus hijos.
El banco comunal "Querer es Poder" recibió su préstamo en julio de este año 2010. Palmenia compró mercadería para sus negocios: paquetería y bazar y venta de comida rápida. Durante los meses de invierno sus negocios han bajado un poco las ventas, pero eso ya es normal, según lo observado por Palmenia. Actualmente tiene planeado asociarse a una compañera de grupo para vender comida rápida y colaciones por encargos. Esta idea surgió porque Palmenia a veces tiene pedidos grandes, como por ejemplo hace poco un colegio le encargo 83 sándwiches de lomos y le costo mucho terminarlos a tiempo. Además esa sociedad les permitirá tener más capital para invertir y así ofrecer sus servicios a instituciones más grandes. El sueño de Palmenia es seguir creciendo en su negocio y de esta manera seguir mejorando la calidad de vida de su familia, es decir sus 4 hijos y su marido, quien actualmente se encuentra trabajando en una mina. Fondo Esperanza (FE) is currently the largest Chilean microfinance organization and is proudly Kiva's first microfinance partner in Chile! FE's mission is to provide solidarity micro-loans to economically vulnerable populations. Seeking to overcome poverty in Chile by incubating small businesses, FE provides a holistic range of microfinance services beyond the loans themselves, including entrepreneurial education and network promotion. To lend to another entrepreneur from Fondo Esperanza, follow this link http://partners.kiva.org/team/fondo_esperanza. Thank you for supporting FE!
Charity tailoring business has been experiencing a lot of improvement lately. She could only attribute the success to her Kiva loan. Her last Kiva was infusing into her business to fetch sarongs and other tailoring materials to sell. She sees the business as one thing that has really empowered her to help meet her family needs.
She is happily married with children. She thanks Kiva lenders for all the help in her business. She said that It's beautiful having Kiva loan as asupport in business. She has fully repaid her kiva loan and she says thanks to all that made her loan possible.
When we travel to Sari Karya groups, the rain was falling because the current rainy season. The distance between the village and our office about 20 km. In general, the group settled can work well and on time. Their efforts can work well, although not significantly. Their pigs can grow well and their average benefit is sufficient to meets their needs. of the total members of 13 people, one member quit because his family moved to another place. However, for the next loan, there is the addition of three new members.
Thank you for supporting borrowers in Guatemala through FAPE (Foundation for the Assistance of Small Businesses). I have had the privilege of serving as a Kiva Fellow with FAPE here in Guatemala City for the past three months, and have been fortunate enough to meet some of the borrowers to whom you have lent.
FAPE is a small microfinance institution with a big heart. Over the course of the last three months, I have begun to realize the lengths that some of Kiva´s Field Partners will take to support and improve the lives of those they serve. With its 16 loan officers the foundation actively works to adapt its microcredit products to its´ clients needs and to support them with business education and training and health services. Through these services, FAPE is able to empower its´ clients to improve their lives by providing them with the tools to do so.
Over the last three months, I have worked with FAPE to post some of their village banks, groups of 10-20 women communally seeking loans, to Kiva. The picture that accompanies this journal is of me with FAPE´s third Kiva village bank loan: "Hasta la Última Rincon". Riding to the bank opening in the FAPE pick-up truck, I joked with FAPE´s executive director and the head of FAPE´s health project "Gems of Hope" about the name. It means "Until the Last Corner" and after two hours on dirt roads, the name began to take on a new meaning.
We got lost twice (as we turned down alleys that were the second to last corners), but ultimately we found the group. I explained to them about Kiva and about the lenders all over the world that are interested in seeing them succeed, and then, FAPE´s health project was introduced: how at every bi-weekly meeting, the 14 women would have the opportunity to consult a doctor or nurse from the project and how a short training about health and nutrition (ending with a healthy meal being cooked!) would be offered. The meeting ended with smiles from the women and their kids as each member´s check and traditional Guatemalan tamales were passed out.
At that moment, I realized what a great support this loan was to this village bank´s members. For the majority, it was their first loan and throughout the meeting they would express how grateful they were for the loan, and how the loan would enable them to buy the materials to sew the traditional Guatemalan clothes they sold or to raise more chickens and pigs on their farm. But equally impressive is how far FAPE is going to go for these clients over the life of the loan. Once every two weeks, a loan officer will visit the village bank to collect repayments and check up on the member´s businesses, and accompanying the loan officer will be two medical professionals from FAPE´s health project offering their services. But like we joked earlier, this bank and many of the clients that FAPE serves are "Hasta La Última Rincon" so twice a month, FAPE personnel will truly be going the distance for the clients they serve.
Kiva lenders like yourself have lend $355,300 to over 500 FAPE entrepreneurs over the past three years. Thank you for your support and you can continue to lend to FAPE here or Guatemala here.
Don Rogelio comenta que su experiencia con el préstamo es muy bonita, porque este dinero llego a sus manos cuando más lo necesitaba. El hoy cuenta con material para realizar los trabajos que le solicitan los clientes, además nos dice que todos los encargos pendientes logro darles salida quedando bien con los clientes. Las aspiraciones para él son ampliar el taller, aumentar los clientes y mejorar su desempeño en el trabajo para darle una mejor estabilidad económica a su familia.
Comme prévu les achats des produits divers ont été effectués par les membres du groupe pour les vendre sur le marché de San. Ce prêt a permis à ses bonnes dames d'augmenter leur fonds de roulement et de diversifier leur activité. Selon les femmes, elles ont gagné plus de bénéfice que prévu. Ce gain supplémentaire leurs a permis d'appuyer leurs époux pour surmonter les dépenses familiales. Elles envisagent d'étendre leur commerce dans les marchés environnant de San pour servir plus de clients.
Doña Ruth ha incrementado su negocio desde que se le aprobó el préstamo motivo por el cual ella esta agradecida por esta oportunidad de mejorar su trabajo, ella elabora hamacas, bolsos y gorras. Nos cuenta que invirtió su préstamo en la compra de materiales para la confección de sus productos como hilo de seda de diferentes colores, sus ventas han incrementado y no ha tenido dificultad para el pago de sus cuotas, Doña Ruth dice que trabajara fuerte hasta realizar su sueño de ver su negocio fuerte y poder mejorar su vivienda.
This loan has been refunded for the following reason:
Kiva's field partner, MLO Humo, posted this loan to Kiva.org with an incorrect loan amount. For this reason, we have decided to refund your contribution to this loan. We are working with MLO Humo to keep errors like this from recurring in the future. Thank you for supporting this loan on Kiva.org. We hope you will use your Kiva credit to support another borrower in the near future.
My name is Yelena Shuster and I am a Kiva Fellow from New York who has spent the last three months working at Komak Credit Union, one of Kiva's field partners in Azerbaijan.
What is a field partner?
Kiva field partners are local microfinance institutions (MFIs) staffed by people who live in the same communities/towns that they serve. Without these field partners Kiva could not reach the millions of borrowers whose lives benefit from access to credit.
Komak, which means "help" in Azeri, became Kiva's field partner in 2006. This partnership helped propel Komak from a fledgling organization with 20 members at its inception in 1999 to 1455 members at the close of 2009. Komak's main client base consists of internally displaced people (IDPs) who were expelled from their homes when Armenian forces occupied the region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s. Almost 20 years later, many IDPs continue to struggle to adjust to life outside their homeland, and poverty amongst this demographic is common.
With loans from you and other Kiva lenders, Komak has distributed over $2 million to 1800 borrowers since Dec 2006. Agriculture, retail and service are the primary sectors of employment.
Please watch these two videos I made during my meetings with borrowers in Absheron & Fuzuli regions:
It's because of lenders like you that Komak has grown into an organization capable of helping so many people. The need for microfinance remains strong in Azerbaijan, especially in rural regions like Fuzuli where employment opportunities are limited and many people have left to find jobs elsewhere. In order to facilitate business development in Fuzuli and prevent the exodus of more young people out of the region, Komak provides clients in Fuzuli with low interest loans.
In Azerbaijan, the best way to make out a living for many people is to engage in small businesses, such as selling dairy products to neighborhood stores from cows one purchased with a Kiva loan, or providing taxi services throughout one's town with the car that was repaired with a Kiva loan, or selling clothes and household accessories from one's shop whose range of products were expanded with assistance from a Kiva loan.
By taking their loans through Komak, Azerbaijani borrowers get to work with a trustworthy organization that works to be transparent and accountable to their members. In 2007, Mix Market, the leading source of performance data on MFIs around the world, awarded Komak a certificate of transparency with 5 diamonds, the highest award given.
With your help Komak has helped hundreds of borrowers improve not only their business, but their standard of living as well. Please continue to support us and remember that we appreciate your generosity!
You can find current fundraising loans from Komak here.
Salamat sa Kiva sa oportunidad nga gihatag diri sa Paglaum isip usa ka member nahatagan pod kami ug oportunidad nga makahulam aron idugang sa maong panginabuhian. Salamat sa Kiva!
Thelesphore is kiva client via Vision Finance Company since a long time. Thelesphore is genuine client obviously because he paid back full amount to VFC. Thelesphore is now thankful to all kiva lenders for their contribution in his business. As far as loan impact; he expanded his loan and solved his family problems.
Docas used her loan to buy more cassava to fry more garri to sell. She says that lately due to the economy her sales have not been great, but they haven't been too bad either. She didn't have any issues repaying her loan on time! She says her goals now are to continue moving forward "little by little". She is still paying back her kiva loan.
Rosario Suizo is so grateful to thanks to Gata Daku Multi- Purpose Cooperative that make it possible for her business. She is now successful in her business and her family is doing well too. She is grateful to all KIVA lenders. she is still paying back her Kiva loan.Thank You very much and God Bless....
My name is Alexis Guild and I have had the privilege of working with the staff of IMPRO over the past three months as a Kiva fellow. As you may know, all entrepreneur profiles on Kiva's web site are posted by local field partners (microfinance institutions) such as IMPRO, which are organizations that lend to the working poor to help lift themselves out of poverty.
You are receiving this e-mail because you have made a Kiva loan through IMPRO and we thought you might be interested in learning more about this Kiva partner.
IMPRO is a small, family-run NGO (non-governmental organization) that works in the cities of La Paz, El Alto and the surrounding rural areas. The partnership with Kiva, which began in 2007, has allowed IMPRO to expand their services while maintaining low interest rates. Bolivia, which is known for its expansive and relatively successful microfinance sector, is a competitive marketplace. IMPRO has been able to distinguish itself through its customer service and varied loan products beyond microenterprise such as health and education loans. The most distinctive and perhaps the most successful loan product offered by IMPRO is their "Mejoramiento de Habitat y Vivienda" (Housing and Living Conditions Improvement) program.
What distinguishes this program from other loan products is that the lead loan officer, Enrique, is also a trained architect. He dedicates himself exclusively to the "Mejoramiento de Habitat y Vivienda" program. Beyond credit consultation and monitoring of the loan, Enrique also offers his professional services advising the clients on such issues as design as well as the type and cost of materials.
Meet Eufracio Mita, one of IMPRO's housing loan clients (pictured, in the red jacket). He used his loan to start construction on a bathroom in the house he lives in and to repair the bedroom walls of a second house he rents out. While he encountered some difficulties due to the increased price of labor, he has been able to complete this construction. In describing his relationship with IMPRO, he thanked Enrique for his advice and help as he gathered the necessary materials. The repairs allowed him to improve the quality of life of his family. Not only did the value of the houses increase, but he also was able to ensure the continued additional income of the house he rents out. In the future he hopes to continue with the construction of his home, building a second story to create more living space. Eventually, he told us, he hopes his children will be able to live in the house he currently rents out.
Eufracio's relationship with Enrique is not unique at IMPRO. The loan officers and other dedicated staff, many of whom have worked with the organization for more than 10 years, pride themselves on their high quality of customer service. I have continually been impressed with the commitment of the staff to their clients. On numerous visits with various loan officers, I have seen the warmth and trust built in the relationship with the client. To the clients, the IMPRO loan officers are also friends.
My experience over the past three months has shown me that microfinance is about more than providing loans – it is about providing opportunities and building relationships. You, as a Kiva lender, play an important role in this relationship (hopefully you have received or will receive an update on a loan you supported). Each time I explained Kiva to a client, they were impressed and honored by the wide breadth of support from all over the world. Some even asked for the web site address so they could see Kiva for themselves. Your impact is tangible.
On behalf of the IMPRO loan officers and staff, I would like to thank you for your continued support. Please consider joining the Friends of IMPRO lending team to keep up with currently fundraising loans and to connect with other IMPRO lenders.
It has been an honor working with Kiva and the entrepreneurs in Bolivia.
Consesa owns and operates a recycling business. Through the loan she borrowed from ASKI and KIVA lenders, she had the opportunity to improve her business using the loan she received. She is grateful for their support and generosity for it really help a lot in the business and in their family.
About ASKI:
ASKI's Vision: A God-centered, model microfinance organization committed to serving the needy in Luzon through socio-economic development and holistic transformation. To see ASKI borrowers who are currently fund raising on Kiva click Here To read more about ASKI visit their partner profile page Here If you would like to read more about what it is like to be a Kiva Fellow check out our blog Here Support ASKI and their staff and join the ASKI lending team Here
I've been serving as a Kiva Fellow at HOPE Ukraine, Kiva's only field partner in Ukraine, for almost 3 months. Thanks in large part to your generosity and commitment to microfinance in Ukraine, HOPE Ukraine is successfully growing as an organization and has recently made efforts to diversify its portfolio to include agricultural loans. These loans to greenhouse farmers in eastern Ukraine have been extremely successful in helping HOPE weather an economic storm that has been particularly bad for HOPE Ukraine's clients.
The 2008 economic crisis had a direct and devastating impact on the Ukrainian economy, and its citizens are still reeling. I've gathered from HOPE Ukraine's clients and Loan Officers that the devaluation of the Ukrainian Hryvna against the US Dollar has had the most negative impact on Ukraine, and in particular its small business owners. The US Dollar plays an extremely important role in the banking, manufacturing, and retail sectors of the world economy. Here in Ukraine, most bank loans are repaid in dollars and most wholesale products are priced in dollars. So when the value of the Ukrainian Hryvna dropped from 5 UAH to the dollar to nearly 10 UAH to the dollar, small businesses were hit especially hard. Now the Hryvna has stabilized to about 8 UAH to 1 USD. For Lidiya Geiko, who runs a kiosk selling shoes and clothes in Dneprorudnyi, this meant the 10,000 UAH loan she received through HOPE Ukraine and Kiva purchased 2/3 as much product as it used to. She told me that she would not be able to stay open were it not for her microloan.
Meanwhile, repaying loans became harder than ever, even for the borrowers of HOPE Ukraine who received loans funded by you Kiva lenders. HOPE Ukraine delinquencies and defaults rose greatly between 2008 and 2009, and HOPE was forced to close several of its offices throughout Ukraine. Something needed to change.
HOPE Ukraine noticed greenhouse farmers throughout Kamenka in eastern Ukraine were getting small loans from different organizations and creating lucrative businesses with their greenhouses. Greenhouse farmers can yield as much as 35,000 UAH (about $4,750) from one greenhouse during a growing season. But purchasing the materials to build a new greenhouse costs a third of that and must be done before the growing season starts, when farming families lack that extra capital. So HOPE Ukraine introduced its own agricultural loans for the greenhouse farmers in Kamenka. A loan in January allows the farmer to have that extra money to build a greenhouse and repay his loan in two large chunks at the end of a 6 month loan term, after the completed greenhouse has already yielded its profits. These loans have been extremely successful. The office in Kamenka that manages these loans has a delinquency rate of less than 1%.
Ukrainians have been greenhouse-farming for generations. Under the Soviet Union, families were allowed to build small, recreational greenhouses that measured no more than 70 centimeters high and a meter long. If USSR officials came around and saw that they were any bigger, said Sergei Galushka, they would just mow them down with tractors.
Today, the greenhouses are massive. Sergei's were 60 meters long and 8 meters high. Driving along dirt roads through Kamenka Village in Ukraine, I must have seen hundreds of greenhouses, one after the other. They're really quite beautiful, round half cylinders, the sunlight reflecting off the opaque plastic covering steel and wooden bars.
The beauty of the greenhouse is that it has a built-in cycle that puts farmers months ahead of the natural growing season. With snow still on the ground, radish seeds are planted in a kind of "staging area" or prep-greenhouse. There they grow until the radishes are about one month away from being ready to harvest, and then are planted in the greenhouse. There the plants grow for another month and are harvested. At the time of harvesting, the tomato plants are growing in the staging greenhouse and will soon be moved to the greenhouse, while a new crop of tomatoes or maybe cucumbers are planted in the prep greenhouse.
One greenhouse crop of radishes yields about 7,000 Hryvna, and even more for tomatoes, cucumbers, and cabbage. Volodya Alekyan can just take his vegetables to the highway and set up a stand, where semi trucks will come from as far away as Moscow to get quality produce ahead of season. With such demand, greenhouse farmers can charge more for their produce and thus reap more profits.
HOPE Ukraine plans to expand its agricultural loan program, says the organization's director Andre Barkov. He hopes that the success of Kamenka's farmers will influence greenhouse farmers in neighboring villages where HOPE Ukraine does not yet work. This will be beneficial not only for HOPE Ukraine but more importantly for those residents of the villages who depend on farming for food and a sustainable income. To see all fundraising loans from HOPE Ukraine, click here. To get more involved, consider joining the HOPE Ukraine Kiva lending team!
I had so much fun going to Kamenka to visit the greenhouse farmers. They're so hard working and so warm and welcoming to someone such as I who interrupted their working day to visit them. After showing me around their farms, Volodya and his family invited me into their two-room home for Armenian coffee; Sergei and Oksana had me in for Ukrainian borsch and vodka.
Visitamos a Ramona estaba muy contenta con su medio de ingreso, pues siempre está pendiente que su negocio este con un buen inventario. Tiene mucho tiempo de realizar este negocio, pues el único medio de vida que tiene hasta los momentos, ha sabido administrar muy bien su negocio.
Ella utilizo el financiamiento la compra de carne pues siempre está poniendo mucho empeño en mejorar cada día con el servicio a sus clientes. Esto le proporciono mucha ventaja con la competencia, pues Ramona ofrecía lo que otros no podían ofrecer ella obtuvo mucho más fama en su negocio por lo que fue de gran ayuda.
Así sus ventas incrementaron y mejoraron para ella, pues siempre tiene presente que su negocio le dio lo necesario para mejorar su condición de vida.
Por lo que se siente muy agradecida con este financiamiento que es su único medio de trabajo y se siente feliz con esta oportunidad que le brindaron.
Pues siempre tiene los deseos de tener otro local, para mejorar sus ingresos, así podrá seguir proporcionando buen servicio a sus clientes.
Beatrice is now very busy with her business upon the release of her loan from LAPO and Kiva lenders, through this she able to finance her business for more improvement. Through this she is been able to generate more income to sustain the daily needs of her family. She bought more salon materials to sell. She hopes to own a big salon in the future. She is happy that she is able to also interact with her customers. That is why she is thankful to all that made this loan possible.She is still paying back her kiva loan.
On July 7th, 2009, you helped fund a loan amount of $550 to Adwoa. We recently caught up with her to ask her about her loan experience and this is what she had to say:
With the loan, Adwoa bought soft drinks and provisions in bulk for sale. She says business is doing well; her profit has increased. Adwoa invests the profits in her kids' education and has no problem at all meeting her repayments. Adwoa wants another loan to buy goods in bulk.
The loan, disbursed by Lebanese MFI Al Majmoua, Lebanese Association for Development and supported by you Kiva lenders, has been almost repaid. Haidar was able to purchase the tools and merchandise needed for his work. Haidar is thankful for the opportunity the Al Majmoua - Kiva loan has given him.
The Lebanese Association for Development – Al Majmoua, is Lebanon's leading microfinance institution. Al Majmoua's core business is to provide "micro" loans to individuals all over Lebanon who have limited or no access to formal lending channels. Al Majmoua believes that non financial services, particularly Business Development Services, play a complementary role in improving the quality of life of the most vulnerable, especially women entrepreneurs. More than 6,000 women have participated in business and vocational trainings free of charge in the past 3 years. As of December 2009, Al Majmoua had over 18,000 active beneficiaries, including more than 7,000 women, and an outstanding loan portfolio of US $14 million. From 1997-2009, Al Majmoua disbursed more than 128,000 loans totaling US $129 million loans. To learn more about Al Majmoua, please visit: Al Majmoua is currently funding loans.
The loan, disbursed by Lebanese MFI Al Majmoua, Lebanese Association for Development and supported by you Kiva lenders, has been almost repaid. Yousef used his loan to purchase tools for his work. He is thankful for the opportunity the Al Majmoua - Kiva loan has given him.
The Lebanese Association for Development – Al Majmoua, is Lebanon's leading microfinance institution. Al Majmoua's core business is to provide "micro" loans to individuals all over Lebanon who have limited or no access to formal lending channels. Al Majmoua believes that non financial services, particularly Business Development Services, play a complementary role in improving the quality of life of the most vulnerable, especially women entrepreneurs. More than 6,000 women have participated in business and vocational trainings free of charge in the past 3 years. As of December 2009, Al Majmoua had over 18,000 active beneficiaries, including more than 7,000 women, and an outstanding loan portfolio of US $14 million. From 1997-2009, Al Majmoua disbursed more than 128,000 loans totaling US $129 million loans. To learn more about Al Majmoua, please visit: Al Majmoua is currently funding loans.
She was very thankful to Paglaum and to all kiva lenders that she has given an opportunity for the additional of her capital and now her income was increase and her business was progress too. Thanks to Kiva and Paglaum.
Byuanjargal Badamsuren thanks Kiva and their lenders for helping to support his business. He received a 3,500,000 MNT (~ 2475 USD) loan from XacBank, Kiva's Mongolian partner MFI, in July, 2009, and is currently still paying off the loan. Buyanjargal requested this loan to purchase spare parts for his truck. Thanks to the loan, he has repaired two tires and other parts of the truck and has been able to operate usual transportation service. Since received the loan, he has been successfully operating his transportation business without any problems, and has been able to pay his brother's tuition fee.
Djuraev Ilhom is a deserve bread baker in his village. He bakes and sells the national bread "lepeshka" in the local market. After he loaned from IMON to expand his business, now it is doing well. The loan helped him to expand his business improve his living. Ilhom would like to say thanks to all lenders who support his family business. He also would like to inform you that now he becomes more self-confidence and he believes in a bright future.
The loan, disbursed by Lebanese MFI Al Majmoua, Lebanese Association for Development and supported by you Kiva lenders, has been already repaid. Mhamad was able to purchase animal feed for his livestock. He is thankful for the opportunity the Al Majmoua - Kiva loan has given him.
We hope that you will continue to support Kiva partner, Al Majmoua, and its dynamic entrepreneurs. Al Majmoua's activities have a tangible impact in changing the life of a large number of beneficiaries. Changes observed are not only related to economic variables such as the increase in revenue or a better sustainability of the business, they also relate to social changes such as women economic empowerment and general improvement of the life conditions. As of December, 2009, Al Majmoua had: • 18,000 active beneficiaries, including more than 7,000 women • An outstanding portfolio of $14 million • Disbursed more than 128,000 loans totaling US $129 million over the period 1997-2009 • Offered non-financial services to more than 5,800 women. Make an impact and lend to a currently fundraising entrepreneur today: http://www.kiva.org/lend?partner_id=77&status=fundRaising&sortBy=New+to+Old - Learn more about Al Majmoua's work: http://www.kiva.org/partners/77 - Read blog entries from the Kiva Fellow in Lebanon: http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/category/countries/middle-east-north-africa-mena/lebanon/ - Be part of Al Majmoua Team on Kiva: http://www.kiva.org/team/al_majmoua_lebanese_association_for_development
Often, when our borrowers plan to purchase livestock they choose to buy cows, bulls or sheep—depending on seasonal prices, among other factors. This borrower had planned to purchase a cow, but instead purchased a few sheep. Working in agriculture is difficult (see our Kiva Fellow's blog) and part of the loan was also used to buy potatoes and fuel for the sowing process.
Kenzhekan has been borrowing from Mol Bulak Finance for three years, she is happy with the microfinance institute's services. So far, the Institute has helped her learn to effectively handle money: she has significantly increased her turnover. In autumn, she plans to take out another loan. She will use her profits to finish constructing a more suitable house for herself, and her family.
Please see video of Kenzhekan's husband on the farm…
To learn more about Mol Bulak and view a Video presentation about the organization, please visit: http://www.kiva.org/about/aboutPartner?id=135. If you would like to support and learn more about Kyrgyzstan and micro-finance in Central Asia, please join our Lending Team - Supporters of Kyrgyzstan - at http://kiva.org/team/kyrgyzstan
Azucenas un grupo de señoras alegres, durante el préstamo obtenido, todas cumplieron con normalidad sus cuotas así oomo invertieron en sus negocios el préstamo. Edwin Alanoca uno de los integrantes indica que el préstamo le ha permitido mejorar su negocio comprando fierros, hojas, mesas todo a medio uso, para luego venderlo. Ahora está solicitando nuevamente el préstamo para continuar invirtiendo en su negocio.
nYou may have noticed that your loan to an entrepreneur via Kiva Field Partner BRAC Tanzania has been delinquent for many months. During that time, we have posted a number of updates to BRAC Tanzania's Field Partner page, detailing the reasons for the delinquency. You can see those updates here: http://www.kiva.org/partners/102.nnKiva and BRAC Tanzania have been working for a number of months to get repayments to Kiva lenders cleared through the Bank of Tanzania. Though we continue to work to get outstanding repayments cleared and repaid to Kiva lenders, we have decided to default all delinquent loans facilitated by BRAC Tanzania.nnKiva's policy is to default loans if we deem that either collection of the loan funds is unlikely, or if 180 days since the last repayment have passed, subject to case by case differences. Though we believe that BRAC Tanzania and Kiva will obtain the necessary clearance from the Bank of Tanzania to remit repayments to Kiva lenders, it has been well over 180 days since the last repayment was made to Kiva lenders and timing of any eventual clearance from the Bank of Tanzania is uncertain.nnIn the event that BRAC Tanzania repayments are cleared, Kiva will deposit those repayments to contributing lenders as Kiva Credit. If all funds are repaid to Kiva lenders, we will un-default these loans (the loan status will be changed from "Defaulted" to "Paid Back").nnAll further updates will be posted on BRAC Tanzania's Field Partner page - http://www.kiva.org/partners/102n
Ernestina is a divorcee who bakes bread. she uses income from her business to cater for her children. She has been able to pay the fees of children from the loan she took and hopes she will have more of such to enable her support her children education.
Mrs. Thida Rous has paid off her loan. She would like to say thank you to all the Kiva lenders who funded her loan through MAXIMA. She hopes to ask for another loan again. Please look out for her next loan request!
As a Kiva Fellow, one of my main roles has involved meeting with borrowers, primarily for the purpose of writing journals to update lenders on the progress of their borrowers and the loans they have. I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to meet over 80 of the borrowers whom you and your fellow lenders have supported through Kiva. Most of these borrowers live in or near Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua, but I have also traveled to Juigalpa, another city about three hours away. Sixty percent of AFODENIC's Kiva borrowers live and work in Managua, while the remaining 40 percent come from Juigalpa or Nueva Guinea, where the institution's third major branch office is located. In December, AFODENIC reached the two-year mark in its partnership with Kiva, and so far Kiva lenders have lent a total of $1,784,300 to AFODENIC borrowers. For more information about AFODENIC and the great work the organization is doing, visit the field partner page on the Kiva site.
In several senses, a theme of my time working as a Kiva Fellow has been the unpredictability of microfinance. Just as my personal experience has been unpredictable – I didn't know exactly what to expect when I left home for Nicaragua – it quickly became clear to me that many borrowers, and thus the microfinance institutions that lend to them, have to contend with the effects of unpredictability on an everyday basis. Julia Maria Vega, for one, took out a loan intending to purchase construction materials to replace her front wall, currently made of wood, with cement blocks. Unfortunately, this was not to be. Julia's pulpería – a general store that is often run out of the front of the owner's home – is her source of income, and she uses that revenue to pay back the loans she takes out for construction. But when business is bad in the store, Julia can't purchase more items to sell and if she doesn't have items to sell, she won't be able to repay her loan. When Julia requested her loan, she couldn't predict how bad business was going to be and so didn't know she wasn't going to be able to use the loan in the way she wanted. Other borrowers I've met have experienced other unpredictable misfortunes, like robbery or major medical expenses within the family that they did not anticipate.
I have also seen the impact of some unpredictable forces that work on a larger scale. When I asked borrowers how their businesses were doing, those who told me that things were not going so well often cited "la situación" or "la crisis" as the reason, referring to the ongoing global economic downturn. The economic crisis, another unpredictable turn of events, has not been kind to Nicaragua, which is the poorest country in Latin America and has the second lowest per capita income in the entire Western Hemisphere, after Haiti. Several borrowers were even able to put exact figures on the downturn their own businesses are experiencing. Jorge Orozco Sanchez, who sells bread in his neighborhood, told me he has lately been making about 150 sales per day whereas he used to sell around 250 items on a good day. Similarly, Marvin Jose Sandoval said that sales are low in his pulpería because of the state of the economy; when he first started taking out loans from AFODENIC, he was bringing in about 2,000 cordobas on a daily basis, equivalent to just under $100. Now, he makes 700 or 800 cordobas' worth of sales in a day, about $35 or $40.
Like the economic crisis, another unpredictable large-scale "evento inesperado" (unexpected or undesirable event) plagued the country during this past rainy season: a drought. In Nicaragua, the rainy season, known as winter, runs from May to October or so, while the dry season, called summer, lasts from November to April. But in 2009, the rainy season was not quite so rainy. Many of AFODENIC's borrowers work in agriculture, cultivating crops such as pineapple, rice, beans, plantains, tomatoes, squash, pitahaya, and more. Maria Auxiliadora Bermudez requested a loan for her restaurant but gave it to her husband instead to invest in his squash crops, thinking it would prove to be a more beneficial investment. He ended up losing the entire crop this year as a result of the drought.
I want to end on an optimistic note. As I look back over the borrowers I've mentioned here, many of them fall into the category of borrowers I met who were having a tough time, those whose sales had fallen or who had been affected by some sort of unpredictability. And these borrowers do indeed make up a significant portion of the recipients of microloans from AFODENIC. But there is another group too, borrowers like Isolda Adilia Bravo Ruiz and Iccel Amanda Martinez Suarez who told me with confidence that sales are good, that their businesses are doing well. In thinking about the microfinance work that Kiva, AFODENIC, and other microfinance institutions are doing in Nicaragua, the borrower who is feeling the effects of the economic troubles in the country and the world and the borrower whose business is doing well are both part of the complete picture—and that's one thing we can predict.
Thank you for supporting a Kiva entrepreneur in Benin. As the Kiva Fellow placed with ALIDé, Kiva's field partner in Benin, I can tell you first hand what your loan has meant.
For starters, your US $25 is the equivalent of about 12,500 CFA francs, the currency used in Benin and thirteen other countries in Africa. This is quite a bit of money and more than most Beninese people are used to seeing at one time. To give you some perspective, here are some things you can buy for just 100 CFA francs (roughly 20 cents): • An egg and avocado baguette sandwich • A second hand t-shirt (involves a bit of bargaining) • One or two pre-sliced pineapples (depends on their size) • A ten minute ride on a zemidjan (a motorcycle taxi) • 20 fried plantains
As you can expect, Kiva's entrepreneurs in Benin take their loans very seriously. Loans average around US $300 (a small fortune – 30,000 fried plantains!) and are usually invested towards developing an existing business. This is often a business the borrower inherited from her mother, be it selling food (like Madeleine Avohou) or produits divers, a random assortment of products like toothpaste and powdered milk (like Antoinette Hounsou). Since there's a large amount of women doing the same trades, their rate of return isn't high, but the US $300 can help them take their business to the next level, or at least keep their kids in school, which for a country with a 65% illiteracy rate is great news.
Success doesn't have to end there. Occasionally, you meet people like Michèle Tokelo. Michèle's getting ready to take out her seventh loan with ALIDé, her second with Kiva. Her loans have allowed her evolve from selling produits divers to having a stall with a variety of dry goods, a hair salon, and a telecom booth (her newest and most lucrative venture). As if that (and being the mother of four kids, all educated) wasn't enough, she spends her "extra time" organizing training sessions on business and health for the women in her community, and personally coaching them on how to get their first loans and start their own businesses. It's estimated that Michèle, who only has a primary school education, has helped almost 300 women start their own successful businesses! One can only hope that stories like Michèles become more frequent.
Thanks again for you loan. I hope that when it's repaid, you lend again to someone in Benin. And if you're interested in learning more about Benin, please consider joining the Kiva lending team, Friends of Benin.
Thank you for supporting an entrepreneur in Senegal! My name is Sam Trauffer and I have been serving as a Kiva Fellow in Senegal for the last three months. I have worked with Caurie Microfinance, one of Kiva's Field partners in Senegal. As you may know, the work in the field is done by local Microfinance Institutions (MFIs): they disburse the loans, visit the clients, ensure the repayment of the loans and much more. My role as a Kiva Fellow is to facilitate connections between Kiva and Caurie Microfinance by teaching their staff about Kiva policies, streamlining their processes as well as supporting the MFI in posting Borrower Profiles and Journal Updates.
Caurie Microfinance has been a Kiva Partner for more than two years. In this time, more than 1,400 of its clients were supported by Kiva Lenders like you, with a total loan amount of more than 1 million US Dollars! Caurie MF's methodology of "Bancs Villageois" relies on group solidarity and auto-selection, which helps Caurie to maintain a 100 percent repayment rate! Caurie MF's core mission of serving the poor (primarily women) is achieved not only by its financial services, but also by its contribution to the organization and financial education of its members. To learn more about Caurie MF, visit their partner page.
The most interesting work a Kiva Fellow does is to visit clients in order to write journal updates: to hear their stories face-to-face, listen to their dreams and learn about the difficulties they face. It is these client visits where Kiva's goal of connecting people through lending comes alive: lenders get a feedback from the borrower, learning what impact their loan had. The borrowers get feedback, too: by printing out their borrower profile we can inform them about the Kiva lenders who financed their loans. Can you think of anything more encouraging for an entrepreneur in rural Senegal than showing her that her business is supported by people all over the globe who appreciate her hard work? Most borrowers react as follows: they first gaze at the sheet in unbelieving amazement, say "wow" and then receive the profile with a smile on their face. Be aware that Kiva really does create a reciprocal communication: the borrower sees you, too (so you might consider updating your profile image).
Microfinance requires patience. I've met some entrepreneurs who had enormous success, but it took them time to reach this level. The development that is made possible by a single loan is sometimes small. But repeated loans can have a huge impact, they can change lives! To support another client of Caurie MF, visit their fundraising loans and support Caurie MF's staff by joining their lending team. Thank you!
Thank you for supporting entrepreneurs in Bolivia. As you may know, all Kiva loans are actually administered by local field partners. For the past couple of months, I have been working as a Kiva Fellow with Emprender, one of Kiva's field partners in Bolivia.
Emprender (which means "to undertake" in Spanish) became a Kiva partner in March 2008. With an efficient Kiva process in place, Emprender recently received an increase in their monthly fundraising limit to $100,000 from $80,000. Angélica Bolaños, Emprender's new Kiva coordinator, has been doing a great job of uploading Kiva loans emailed to her from Emprender loan officers who work all across Bolivia.
Emprender has 12 offices in Bolivia in the cities of La Paz, Santa Cruz and Cochabamba. During my Kiva Fellowship at Emprender, I spent the majority of my time in the Sopocachi branch in La Paz, but have met staff and clients in all the offices in my work with Kiva.
I wanted to spotlight the great work of three Emprender staff members:
Cochabamba: José
José is a loan officer in the Emprender Colcapirhua office. I visited three of his clients on the back of his scooter. It was my first day in Cochabamba, so he called out the names various plazas, statues and neighborhoods we passed on our route. We met Maria, who owns a general store, Feliciana, owner of a bridal store, and Sergio, who has a kiosk near the plaza and works as a porter. José continually referred to his entrepreneurs as his clientes estrellas (star clients) with a huge grin. He proudly told me their lending and business histories. Check out Sergio's recent journal entry.
Santa Cruz: Efrain
Efrain is a loan officer in the Emprender El Torno office. I visited his 4 of clients in a rural area south of Santa Cruz. He drives up to 6 hours back and forth on rugged roads to visit some of his clients on his scooter. As we passed a herd of grazing cows, he shouted over the sound of the motor "these cows were purchased with Emprender loans!" After visiting three clients, we stopped for a soda at one of his clients' general store. An older woman with a strong demeanor, she proudly told us about her store, her stock of animals and her home. Her newest dream is buy another plot of land to cultivate. Efrain will help her achieve this goal. Check out the recent journal entry I wrote for Efrain's client Rogelio.
La Paz: Maria Luz
Maria Luz is the branch manager for the Emprender Chasquipampa office. As we drove around the neighborhood visiting her clients, she told me her story. She started out as the cleaning lady at the first Emprender office in Chasquipampa 11 years ago. After some time, she worked as a loan officer until being promoted to branch manager. She has a unique style and a smooth yet friendly way of talking to clients and her staff. I was amazed at how many people she stopped to talk to - she knew everyone in Chasqui! And she never forgets a face or a name. I am in awe of her ability to charm, support and persuade her clients. Check out this recent journal entry for Maria Luz's client Isabel Mujica De Leon, written by Angélica (Emprender's Kiva coordinator).
Emprender's Kiva clients, the staff and I are extremely grateful for your support. I hope you continue to lend to Bolivian entrepreneurs through Emprender.
If you would like to lend to another Emprender entrepreneur, please click here,
See videos and photos of Emprender's offices on You Tube and Flickr!
If you have any follow-up questions or comments, feel free to contact me at sheethal.shobowale@fellows.kiva.org and I'd be more than happy to try to address your concerns.
El socio Fredy tiene 27 años de edad y tiene 2 años en la Asociación Arariwa, el socio es policía, el crédito que le prestaron lo utilizo para invertir en el restaurant de su papa, para mejorar y poder comprar mesas y sillas. El está contento con el préstamo otorgado porque de esta manera ha podido ayudar a su papa y ha mejorar su restaurant.
About Asociación Arariwa
Unidad Microfinanza Arariwa (Arariwa) is part of a larger umbrella NGO Asociación Arariwa that was founded in 1977 and began offering microcredit in 1994 with the goal of improving the quality of life, skills and equity of the population of the rural Cusco region.
With a market presence stretching across the entire province of Cusco as well as portions of Puno, Apurimac and Madre de Dios provinces, Arariwa currently serves approximately 14,000 low income entrepreneurs with financial and business development services. Arariwa maintains a strong focus on the village banking methodology, outreach to women – approximately 72% of borrowers are women – and education (all village banking clients receive training in one of four areas). Arariwa's services are tailored towards micro-enterprise owners interested primarily in group loan products.
Arariwa was cited as one of the Top 25 Peruvian Microfinance Institutions in October 2009.
If you would like to lend to another Arariwa entrepreneur, please click here.
Managing a computer shop is Romeo's business in Tuguegarao City located just beside in a university where in most of his customers are employees and students there. He gladly share that his performance of being an ASKI client is good, he has been a good payer, he already paid back his second loan and now he is paying back his newly availed loan in ASKI. He wanted to thank ASKI for their continuous support because of that, his business is doing well and it is continuously giving him enough income for his family. He also wanted to save funds for the future education of his children thus he is working double time.
The loan was funded by Kiva's field partner, Alalay sa Kaunlaran (ASKI), Philippines. ASKI's vision: A God-centered model microfinance organization committed to serving the poorer communities in Luzon through socio-economic development and holistic transformation. To see ASKI's borrowers who are currently fund raising on Kiva click Here To read more about ASKI, please visit their partner profile page Here Support ASKI and their staff by joining the ASKI lending team Here
Rocio pago a tiempo su préstamo en el mes de Marzo del 2010. Posteriormente decidió retirarse de FINCA Perú . Le deseamos la mejor de la suerte en sus futuros emprendimientos.
The loan in the amount of $1,000 is paying back on schedule as of April 2010. Mrs. Thida Rous used her loan to build a fence around of her house as attempted.
After the fence was built around the house Thida is protected from thieves who attempt to steal household items such as clothes on the clothesline, shoes, tools and plants while she is not home. Thida is very happy because the loan paid for the fence. She has no problem paying back the principal and interest on the loan and her monthly installments are on schedule as April 2010.
My name is Gemma North, and for the past four months, I have had the privilege of serving as a Kiva Fellow with CREDIT MFI, one of Kiva's oldest field partners. Thanks to your strong support, the organization has been able to raise over $4 million on Kiva.org and is currently serving over 1,750 Kiva clients.
In the last couple of years, CREDIT has enjoyed tremendous growth, expanding its client base to over 40,000 individuals (93% of which are women), through 34 sub-branch offices. Despite this expansion, the organization has not eschewed its social mission. In 2007, CREDIT chose to develop and begin offering a product that would reach more economically and socially at-risk populations (such as the extreme poor or those affected by HIV/AIDS or sex-trafficking) through a new program called the Vulnerable Services Unit (VSU).
Unlike the majority of CREDIT's loans, which are geared towards individuals who can afford borrowing sums exceeding $50, Vulnerable Services Unit borrowers can get loans starting at a mere $12.50 for a period of up to a year. The VSU program is tailored towards rural clients and individuals with no collateral, therefore borrowers can access credit by forming solidarity groups of four to six people who commit to guaranteeing each other for the entirety of the loan term. As another level of security, four to six village groups then join together to form a village bank, which is directed by an elected leader who will provide mediation if any issues arise.
CREDIT's efforts to best serve its clients are further reflected in the tailoring of this loan product. Since the majority of the clients earn a living through farming, raising animals, or processing local foods, CREDIT has designed repayments to coincide with the harvest season. This way, when farmers need to pay for a large expense prior to the planting season, such as purchasing fertilizer or seeds, they have access to financing. Yet for the next 10-12 months, while they are working in their fields and not earning a large income, clients only repay the interest on the loan, which can be as low as thirty cents or a few dollars a month. The borrowers only repay the loan principal once the harvest is finished and when they have additional income from selling crops. Additionally, CREDIT MFI provides three trainings for all of its clients during the loan cycle: one on debt management, another on budgeting and a third on building and using savings. When possible, the organization partners with local nonprofits to address a community's needs by providing education on other topics such as maternal or child health. While visiting the field, one client told us that although another MFI operates in his area, he and others in the village joined VSU because of these non-financial services.
Recently, I accompanied CREDIT's Kiva Coordinator to a loan disbursement meeting for a VSU village bank. After traveling for nearly forty five minutes by motorbike on a punishing dirt road, we reached a small village and took the first turn into a dirt courtyard where a couple of men, including the village bank leader, were waiting for us. Two staff members from CREDIT spent the next two hours reviewing proper loan use, guarantees, repayments, interest, late fees, the role of the group and village bank leaders and other items, all the while making sure that every person understood the process. Eventually, the Branch Manager for the province arrived to meet the new village bank members and offer them encouragement. Finally, each group was called up to review their loan documents and receive their funds. The credit officer verified the identity of every person and carefully went through their contract and repayment information, finishing by having each client stamp their fingerprints on the documents. Once they received their funds, every member counted their money before returning home.
As I observed this process and received a running translation of what was being said, I was impressed by the contrast between the informality of our surroundings and the business-like atmosphere of the meeting. Here we were, in a remote town where the majority of the villagers live off of what they farm or raise. We were gathered under a thatch-roof shelter; under the awning a chicken sat in a hanging basket and occasionally poked her head out to look at the crowd. Some of the women were sitting on single bricks or their flip-flops, a couple of men had settled in the hammock. Two mothers had their children; one bounced her naked son on her knees while the other had a metal bowl for her daughter to play with. The reviews of the loan documents and disbursement of funds was done over a low bamboo platform covered by a reed mat. Yet the entire meeting had taken nearly three hours to thoroughly cover every item and ensure that all participants clearly understood the engagement. Four staff members from CREDIT had come to participate in the process following a week's worth of prior preparations. Every client had taken off nearly a half day of work to join this meeting--all of this, for loans between $12.50 and $100.
All of the preparation, commitment and professionalism on the part of the CREDIT staff and the organization's efforts to create a valuable service for their clients reminded me yet again that microfinance organizations, while working with and targeting "the poor," consider and treat individuals as clients. This development tool offers people the responsibility and trust to enter into a business relationship which encourages and requires independence, reliability and, in cases like VSU, social cohesion. On behalf of CREDIT MFI we thank you for your continued support and confidence in our work and our clients' commitment to support themselves.
In early this month, AMK's client officer (Loan Officer) visited Khsom village in Kandal province to get an update on Mr. Huy Um.
Mr. Huy Um works very hard in a local village. He is a fisherman and bicycle repairer who tries to generate an income to support his seven children. With funding your loan, he was able to use 600,000 Riels ($150) to buy fish supplies for his fish business. The loan has been useful to him because he was able to catch more fish for selling and consumptions. Because of the loan, he has experienced an increase household income and has started a personal saving. He told us that he now does not have any plan to take out another loan but if he has another business opportunity, he will. His wife is a fish seller.
Mr. Huy Um, his family and group members are happy with the loans' impact, and they wanted to thank the Kiva lenders for funding their loan through AMK!
Be sure to read more about Kiva's excellent partner MFI in Cambodia, AMK (http://www.kiva.org/about/aboutPartner?id=109). And, make another loan to one of AMK's currently fundraising clients! (http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=109&status=fundRaising&sortBy=New+to+Old)
Discussions of Africa seem to inevitably evolve into discussions of health. Hot button issues such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and infant mortality suddenly become unavoidable topics of conversation and often leave us feeling discouraged and overwhelmed. This fact is no less relevant when it comes to discussions about Togo. This tiny West African country sandwiched between Ghana, Benin, and Burkina Faso is home to 6 million people. Thankfully, the HIV/AIDS prevalence hovers around a relatively low 3% of the population, but bacterial and viral infections including malaria are widespread. The Togolese face a life expectancy of just under 60 years and the country rates 42nd in the world for high infant mortality. It is all too easy to feel enveloped in statistics. Yet an extraordinary amount of work is being done to keep the Togolese population healthy. Individuals just like you are taking action, helping others, and using the profits to support their own families. As a Kiva Fellow working with Women and Associations for Gain both Economic and Social (WAGES), I had the opportunity to meet some of these inspiring individuals. The following journal entry will focus on four extraordinary women, all of whom work as nurses or midwives in the Lomé area and received Kiva loans from WAGES.
Akou Damali runs a large prenatal and family planning clinic. Born in Nigeria, Mrs. Damali now works in the Akodésséwa neighbourhood of Lomé. With the help of her loan officer acting as a translator, we conducted our interview in a combination of English, French, and Ewe. When asked how many hours she worked a day, Mrs. Damali laughed and said, "Twenty-four hours." In reality, the clinic must always be open to serve her patients. She used her $1,125 loan to purchase medications, injections, pills and other products for her clinic. At times, Mrs. Damali can struggle to deal with sudden declines in her patients' health. Patients experiencing complications in their pregnancy can fall ill beyond Mrs. Damali's care and she is forced to send them to a hospital. Nevertheless, Mrs. Damali maintains that running a clinic is, in fact, a very profitable business. As a single mother of three, she is able to use the profits make ends meet at home and support her own family.
Edjoè Abiassi works as a midwife and pharmacist in the Hédranawoé neighbourhood just north of Mrs. Damali's clinic. Mrs. Abiassi takes pride in her work. She enjoys helping the sick and finds joy in saving the lives of mothers and babies. In addition to a personal sense of satisfaction, the profits from her business help Mrs. Abiassi support her four children. She used her $650 loan to purchase medications for her business, and she has used the profits to help cover school fees and food costs for her children. Given the difficult nature of her work, Mrs. Abiassi can face extremely trying situations. Currently, she is facing a mass expiration of stock and has been forced to either dispose of some of her medications or send them back to the manufacturer. Like Mrs. Damali, Mrs. Abiassi must overcome complications in her patients' pregnancy or during childbirth. At times, the outcome can be disheartening. As a result, Mrs. Abiassi plans on building a small clinic in the future. There, she will be able to better care for her patients and perform deliveries in a clean and comfortable environment.
Afi Maimounatou Kouloungou and Anoko Lawson run two sister clinics a few blocks apart in the Hédzranawoé district of Lomé. Both clinics offer services such as prenatal care and family planning as well as general services for the ill. These hardworking women must be available twenty-four hours each day in order to care for their patients. Although exhausting, Mrs. Kouloungou maintains that it is worth the work for the sake of "aider l'humanité," helping humanity. Both women used their individual $625 and $975 loans to purchase medications, beds, and other supplies needed to better serve their patients' needs.
It can be difficult to operate a clinic, but Mrs. Lawson has seen the benefits. She divides the profits from her loan in two, using one part to reinvest in her business and putting the remainder into savings. She says that her loan has had a huge positive impact on her family. After the elections, Mrs. Lawson hopes to receive another WAGES loan to purchase land and build a house. Mrs. Kouloungou's family has also benefited from her loan. She says that this loan from WAGES has "changé la vie." It has changed her life and everyone in her family is very happy. In the future, Mrs. Kouloungou would also like to take out another loan with WAGES in order to purchase land and build a house.
The loan officer with whom I was working commented that this seemed to be a common long term plan among WAGES' female entrepreneurs. Mrs. Lawson laughed and said that women cannot just wait for their husbands to provide for them. Instead, they must fend for themselves. She stated wisely that sometimes, "Il faut être maman et papa au meme temps." You have to be mother and father at the same time. Evidently, this line of work has significant challenges. In addition to the difficulties shared with Mrs. Damali and Mrs. Abiassi, Mrs. Lawson mentioned the hardship of working such long hours. Mrs. Kouloungou also addressed a specific situation where patients will require her services, but cannot pay for her care. This puts her in an extremely difficult position. Despite the obstacles they face on a daily basis, all four of these women remain committed to their work and their patients.
All of these dedicated women are thankful for their loans. They ask that Kiva lenders continue to support WAGES so that they may continue to benefit from WAGES loans. As an institution, WAGES also does its part to keep the community healthy. WAGES goes beyond providing financial services to offer health seminars focusing on HIV/AIDS prevention and malaria treatment. Mrs. Damali, Mrs. Abiassi, Mrs. Lawson, and Mrs. Kouloungou strive for this goal independently and are collectively supported by an institution dedicated to the same cause. As a result, the extended WAGES community is working to ensure the ongoing health of their fellow citizens. Empowerment is not possible without health and these four women are lifting themselves out of poverty by helping others do the same.
On behalf of these four women, WAGES, and Kiva, I would like to thank you for ongoing commitment to lending, empowerment, and poverty alleviation. Lend to a WAGES entrepreneur here. Show your support for WAGES by joining the lending team.
Cuando visitamos a la Señora Ada estaba preparando para salir, pues todos los días se prepara para ofrecer sus productos y obtener nuevos clientes.
Ella utilizo el financiamiento para capital de trabajo a pesar de ser una persona muy humilde, es muy trabajadora y que ha logrado sacar adelante a su negocio e hijos. Ella obtuvo una ganancia de un 11% por lo que siempre estaba ofreciendo un buen servicio.
Ella ha recorrido distancias muy largas, pues todos los días viaja ya que tiene que salir a vender sus productos a diferentes personas, su esposo siempre está ofreciendo su apoyo en su negocio, pues la responsabilidad de ambos en sacar adelante a sus hijos es lo que más les importa.
Agradece a todas las personas que dieron su aporte, siendo este crédito muy importante para el desarrollo de su negocio y que por medio de Fundación León 2000 le accedió.
Espera seguir trabajando duro y además terminar de completar sus sueños que siempre mantiene con ella.
The Estrellas de Mar group is now coming to the end of their loan term, and they have completed their payments without problems. Doña Edith used her loan to invest in her various businesses: her main business is an internet cafe where she has eight computers, but she also sells clothing which she buys from a wholesaler in La Paz, and also prepares food (such as chicken sandwiches) to sell. This is her first loan with Pro Mujer after a break of two years. Previously she was in a different group, and ran into problems when several other group members didn´t pay. Under the rules of Pro Mujer´s group guarantee, this meant that all the group members got a bad credit rating. She´s now working to improve that – and hopes that the same doesn´t happen again in this group.
To see more loans from Pro Mujer Bolivia, click here, or copy the URL below into your browser: http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=59&status=fundRaising&sortBy=Old+to+New
My name is Maia Pelleg and I'm a Kiva Fellow working with Sinapi Aba Trust (SAT) in Ghana. I completed my first placement as a Kiva Fellow in Kenya in January, 2010 and was thrilled to embark on an experience with Kiva and microfinance in the new context of West Africa. The initial goals of my posting in Ghana included implementing a repayment reporting system, facilitating a process that enables SAT to provide journal updates to lenders, and making necessary changes to increase efficiency.
I arrived in Kumasi and quickly ascertained that Ghana's reputation for tremendous hospitality stems from reality. The staff of SAT welcomed me warmly and graciously offered to acquaint me with various aspects of Ashanti society.
Unfortunately, as I discovered the kindness of SAT staff, I also found that SAT's existing Kiva system was extremely flawed and lacked proper management. A close look revealed that many loan amounts and terms published on the Kiva website were incorrect. Additionally, the presence of multiple duplicate loan postings was concerning.
Kiva took immediate action and paused SAT for fundraising on Kiva.org. We have evaluated many aspects of the SAT partnership, and I am confident that operational weaknesses can be corrected and adequate management information systems can be utilized.
I have spent the last few weeks designing a new decentralized Kiva system and have already begun implementing changes. Including loan officers from around the country in Kiva processes serves as an additional check as well as enables SAT to provide journal updates and scale in the future. Central to the new Kiva platform is an internal data system that will verify loan details and automate frequent and accurate repayment reports. Additionally, a senior regional manager will be stepping in as Kiva Coordinator at the end of this month.
I am working directly with SAT leadership and staff to execute identified changes. Just this week I trained two branches and several loan officers in how to collect borrower information and photographs for Kiva's site. I can attest to SAT's commitment to a strong Kiva partnership based on integrity and honesty. I am confident that we are able to bridge any gaps that existed in SAT's process of raising funds on Kiva.
This experience serves as a reminder of how seriously Kiva takes transparency and accountability. I hope you will share my ongoing confidence in SAT and more generally in microfinance. Sinapi Aba Trust makes a real difference in the lives of low-income entrepreneurs and I am excited to be a part of enabling them to continue their lending footprint.
Amy Dione used her loan to purchase sheep, beans and peanuts, as intended. With a small part of her loan, however, she bought drugs to cure her daughter who fell ill at the beginning of the loan term. As her business works well at the moment, she is confident that she will be able to pay back the loan at the end of the term.
The revenues help her paying school costs of her youngest children as well as buying better food and thus improving the health of her family.
Madame Dione will intensify sheep breeding in the future and plans even to start raising cattle. So far security concerns restrained her from breeding cattle as there was often theft in her village. With her savings and a future loan she will be able to build a cot to improve security.
Amy Dione is grateful that Caurie Microfinance, one of Kiva's fieldpartners in Senegal, serves the remote village of Mbousnakh .
To see clients of Caurie Microfinance who are currently fundraising on Kiva click here
Con el dinero del préstamo Vladimir pudo comprar cepilladoras de varios tamaños (herramientas de carpintería) ya que las necesitaba con urgencia para seguirse desempeñando bien en su oficio de carpintero.En la actualidad debido a que cuenta con herramientas apropiadas su trabajo es mucho mas efectivo, de ese modo supera los acabados de sus muebles que hizo en años anteriores, ahora son mucho mas refinados, lo que le permite vender a mayor precio por lo que esta muy satisfecho .Es por esta razón que esta muy agradecido con todas las personas que hicieron posible el crédito, ya que siente que su labor se ha dinamizado mucho y ahora esta empleando menos tiempo en los procesos de elaboración. También señala que paga puntualmente sus cuotas, por lo que le gustaría seguir trabajando con posteriores créditos. Por el momento está muy avocado en continuar con su oficio de carpintero, ya que su meta es crecer y convertirse en un gran empresario y proveedor de muebles.
Thank you for all of your support in funding loans posted by Fundacion AgroCapital in Bolivia. My name is Nilima Achwal and I am a Kiva Fellow that spent the last ten weeks working with Fundacion AgroCapital in different branches throughout Bolivia. In my time there, I had the opportunity to meet with hundreds of entrepreneurs that receive loans from this institution, and I'm excited to be able to share an inside glimpse of microfinance in Bolivia with you.
Your loan to an AgroCapital entrepreneur has had a tangible impact on both AgroCapital and your borrower. AgroCapital has received $1.7 million interest-free in the last two years from Kiva lenders, which has allowed them to develop as an institution, for example by implementing a new Social Impact division to measure how well their loans are helping to alleviate regional poverty. On an individual level, series of loans have helped many, many women and men to get their businesses off their feet, allowing them to have more financial stability and personal independence.
I found Bolivians to be an honest and hardworking people, so it has been a pleasure working with them for the last few months. My blog post describes one particularly inspiring moment that reveals a lot about the Bolivian psyche.
Many entrepreneurs at AgroCapital benefit from group loans, the easiest type of loan to access, while others are fortunate enough to have the necessary documents and prerequisites for the larger individual loans. Normally in a group loan environment, social pressure forces the members to pay back on time since if one member defaults, the entire group will be cut off from future access to loans. For this reason, the women in the group usually bond and support one another through hard times. These groups often become micro-communities of moral and professional support for women that are starting their first businesses and have little experience. I've found that it fascinating that every group has a strong and distinct personality based on its location, social class, industry, experience with microfinance, and personal traits. This personality plays a large role in the success of their ventures, though I've found that the vast majority of entrepreneurs are able to expand their businesses and improve their profits as a result of a series of micro-loans, of which your loan is an integral part.
Besides just the economic benefits, I've found that these micro-loans have helped entrepreneurs have more choices, reduce their stress at home, fulfill themselves personally, and ultimately empower themselves as productive and valuable individuals. For example, many women tell me happily and gratefully that the businesses they started with their micro-loans have both brought in more profits for the household and also allowed them to be at home with their children the whole day. A male entrepreneur even mentioned that he hoped his business would allow him to quit the corrupt local police force as soon as possible. These intangible benefits play a large, invisible role in giving these entrepreneurs more freedom and a better quality of life.
Entrepreneur after entrepreneur inspired me with her drive, spirit, and unbelievably hard work.
Martha from Las Reynas group used micro-loans to transform her home from one bed house with a wood fire for cooking to a home with a kitchen with a stove and refrigerator, enough food, a television, and a bed for every member of the family.
Micro-loans also helped give birth to Leonarda and her husband's hugely successful and innovative solar-powered oven business, with which they have been able to comfortably sustain their family.
Virginia from San Expedito group, a proud, energetic single mother of nine children, sums up the drive of many AgroCapital entrepreneurs: "I'm doing well and have made all my payments without a problem. All by myself, I'm lifting myself up, little by little. When you have a responsibility, you do what you need to to fulfill it, even if it means not eating so your kids can. It's hard, but as they say, 'Wanting is power.' If you want something enough, you will make it happen."
Two women express their gratitude in person in these short videos:
Carmen's increased business has allowed her provide more for her children and dream of the future.
Emma explains that it was difficult to take out loans before AgroCapital came into town.
Your micro-loans light the fire for personal and professional development and allow people to find a way to a better life. Our entrepreneurs are hugely grateful and surprised to know there are strangers in foreign lands that care about their ventures. Keep lending, and don't ever doubt that you are making a footprint in someone's life.
On behalf of Kiva, AgroCapital, and all of the entrepreneurs, thank you for your support.
Best,
Nilima Achwal
Kiva Fellow Class 8
Fundacion AgroCapital, Bolivia
La señora María, tiene por actividad la venta de comidas preparadas, tiene pensionistas y clientes diarios, ella les atiende con el carisma y el buen trato que le caracteriza. En la actualidad continúa con el mismo negocio en un ambiente ubicado en su misma casa. Con el préstamo de 2,500 soles, María invirtió en comprar ingredientes para la preparación de sus comidas cómo; arroz y azúcar en kilos, verduras y pollos vivos, parte del dinero lo utilizará también comprando mas mesas, sillas, y accesorios para brindar un mejor servicio. Sus alimentos los compra del Mercado Central.
Con el préstamo que le concedieron a Sonia pudo comprar luces sicodélicas, reflectores y con ello completar la demanda de le hacen sus clientes cuando tiene que celebrar algún evento. Ahora el servicio que ofrece es más solicitado que antes, puesto que tiene mejores equipos que ayudan a que las fiestas salgan mejor. El haber trabajado con un crédito con MFP le ayudó a mejorar su negocio, es por ello que agradece a todas las personas que le dieron el préstamo, y por tanto promete en cumplir con el pago de sus cuotas. En un futuro ella desea continuar ofreciendo este servicio, para ello comprará más equipos modernos y de esa manera cubrir la demanda de su gran clientela.
Vision Finance Company (VFC) has been a Kiva Field Partner for 18 months now and in that time they have raised over US$400,000 from generous, caring Kiva lenders like you. VFC’s monthly Kiva loan limit has steadily increased from US$6,000 to US$15,000 to US$30,000 and, most recently, to US$75,000. Things are moving in the right direction and they have managed these loan allotment increases capably.
With the help of Kiva’s 0% funds, VFC reached a critical milestone for any microfinance institution (MFI) this past summer—they are sustainable. That is to say, VFC is making a small profit or, perhaps more accurately stated, is not operating at a loss. They have achieved this despite a difficult economic environment.
It is not only Kiva’s loan funds that enabled this achievement; VFC’s capable management team is also to be commended. Some difficult decisions were made in early 2009, including some significant staff reductions. Today, this MFI is one of only a handful in Africa that has reached sustainability.
From my observation working here, Kiva lenders’ funds are being used wisely at VFC. This institution is committed to serving the poor—it is increasingly emphasizing group loans, and is reaching poor women in rural areas. This is in line with VFC’s mission as an affiliate of World Vision International. To me as a Kiva Fellow and also as a Kiva lender, it is heartening to know from experience that their stated mission is being followed with success!
It has been an honor to work with the team at VFC and witness firsthand how microfinance lending enables small business ownership in a country that needs more private enterprise. There are several other providers of microloans but many of them are moving up market with larger loan sizes. VFC, in contrast, remains committed to its mission; its low average loan size (about US$250) and rural reach testify to this fact.
The horizon for VFC is exciting. Next year will see the implementation of a mobile banking platform with decentralized data entry. This means much greater efficiency and the ability to go further to rural areas, reaching the poor and deserving women who are VFC’s target lending clientele. For Kiva lenders, this means that loaned funds will be even more effectively deployed. For VFC, it means that continued sustainability is more certain and loan volume capacity will grow. I leave here confident that they will continue to alleviate poverty in Rwanda and make a difference with the funds entrusted to them by Kiva lenders.
Please continue to support this worthy institution as it is just beginning to realize its potential. If you are not already a member, I invite you to join the Vision Finance lending team: http://www.kiva.org/community/viewTeam?team_id=5273. Thank you again for your support.
Ryada, a Partner of CHF International and a Field Partner that administers loans funded by Kiva lenders, does not take the Arabic meaning of its name “pioneer” lightly. In numerous conversations I shared with Operations Manager Izz Twail in Ryada’s headquarters in Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority’s de facto capital, he painted broad strokes of Ryada’s enterprising vision. Phrases like “leading the market,” having the “best practices in Palestine” and “building the culture” were not uttered with the well-intentioned but often ungrounded bravado that arises when other business managers talk about their company’s vision.
Izz has worked in microfinance for 14 years and began as a loan officer in the still-nascent microfinance sector in the Palestinian Territories of the West Bank and Gaza. He’s lived through many events in Palestine’s volatile political history and has seen its effect on all areas of the Palestinian economy. He points out that over the last decade there’s been the “crisis of the intifada, then of a new government, then the salary crisis [as a result of the new government], then Hamas’ takeover in Gaza, then the Gaza war…” So when Izz speaks about what Ryada must become to serve Palestinian microentrepreneurs and create a culture apart from the one that has historically relied on foreign aid, regardless (or maybe because) of what’s going on outside the window, you’re hopeful. But it’s a cautious hope that comes with knowing what has come before, and what can come still.
As a Kiva Fellow with Ryada this fall, I had the opportunity to meet the microentrepreneurs who, despite the ordinary nature of most of their businesses, represent an important piece of Palestine’s fledgling private sector. The current state of the Palestinian economy can be referred to as a “closed cash circle” in which sectors rely on each other’s transactions for survival. Aside from aid and remittances from Palestinians living abroad, traditional outside revenue streams like tourism and exports are non-factors. The former is because of Palestine’s unstable political climate, which keeps would-be tourists from visiting an array of ancient religious and cultural sites; the latter is because of high taxes imposed by Israel, the presence of which is still very much a part of Palestinians’ daily lives.
The economic realities in Palestine explain why a majority of Kiva clients are concentrated in small retail shops and, to some extent, in agriculture. The “sameness” of many of these businesses can be disarming. How many inspiring stories can I (or a similarly frustrated Kiva Coordinator at Ryada) tell about “another supermarket”? But I’ve learned that the story isn’t about the business; it’s about the businessperson and his or her family.
I visited Ghanem in his supermarket in Bet Sereeq, a village outside of Ramallah. His store was predictably ordinary, stocked with standard fare I’d seen in most markets in Ramallah city. But when I asked how he used the US$2,000 Kiva loan to “increase his inventory,” Ghanem presented me with handwritten invoice slips as if he was displaying a newborn child. The sheer fact that his shop, 30 minutes outside of Ramallah proper, could be mistaken for those that line the city’s streets was an accomplishment in itself. Ghanem’s pride in his store, which he mentioned was now “100% better,” came largely from what his achievement meant: his wife and nine children will enjoy a better life.
The previous success and potential of the client’s business ensures that Ryada can give the client a loan and it is this due diligence that has allowed it to raise US$272,950 in one year on Kiva and have a delinquency rate of 1.46% in spite of the war in Gaza last winter. But the businesses themselves are simply tools—tools that will enable the shopkeeper in Nablus or the poultry farmer in Hebron to better their livelihoods for themselves and their families. Although they may not have the benefit of Izz’s vision for Ryada and the transformative potential of microfinance in Palestine, they are integral players in the future of Palestine’s economy. And that’s a pretty good story in its own right.
Please click here to see all Ryada’s loans currently fundraising on Kiva: http://tinyurl.com/ycbvgap. Additionally, join the Palestine lending team and help make Izz’s vision for Palestinian microentrepreneurs a reality: http://tinyurl.com/yhyle3b.
By Mohammed Al-Shawaf, KF9 Palestine
(Pictured: "Ghanem's store, stocked with goods purchased using his Kiva loan.")
My name is Prem Thomas and I had the pleasure of spending the last 14 weeks volunteering as a Kiva Fellow at the Center for Community Transformation (CCT), a pilot field partner in Manila. I was placed here to provide support for the staff and feedback for Kiva into CCT’s lending operations. I spent my time here learning about CCT’s operations, visiting entrepreneurs and training staff so that we can share lenders’ stories with the Kiva community. As you may know, all entrepreneurs that you see on Kiva.org are supported by local field partners like CCT, who post business profiles, disburse loans, collect repayments write journals and interact directly with Kiva lenders.
CCT’s Plan For CCT, microfinance is part of a bigger picture to address the poverty gap in the Philippines. CCT views microfinance as a way to empower its clients to own a business and generate income, but that is just the start. They also provide other necessary services (education, training, healthcare, and clean water) to completely transform the lives of the urban and rural poor and homeless through a holistic development approach anchored in Christian principles.
Typhoon Ondoy and CCT It was a very interesting time to be a fellow at CCT. I landed in Manila just a few days after Typhoon Ondoy flooded much of the National Capital Region and the Philippines. When I arrived CCT was well underway with their disaster response efforts as 4,803 of the 70,000 borrowers and 26 staff members were affected by the storm. As a fellow at CCT, I spent quite a bit of time visiting borrowers and had the opportunity to visit all Kiva CCT borrowers affected by the flood. Here are a couple of their stories:
Jocelyn Urdaneta (http://partners.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=133055&_te=mj) lost her newly purchased chicken and personal possessions in the floods. She had to stay with her in-laws as her room on the first floor was engulfed with floodwaters. To make ends meet, Jocelyn works part-time cleaning the CCT branch office, but hopes to restart her business.
All of CCT’s Typhoon victims who are unable to repay their loans have been entered into a newly launched restoration and recovery program. As part of the program the affected victims will be granted temporary moratoriums on the repayment process and assisted through the recovery and loan repayment process.
And the Rest of the Stories During the last few months I had the opportunity to meet with Filipino farmers, jewelers, grocery store owners, carpenters, trash collectors and direct sellers. Some spoke English and some did not, but they all had something in common: an immense pride in owning their own business and being able to pay back your loans. Despite not having much, all the CCT borrowers were happy, hospitable and seemed to be improving their lives. Most had messages of thanks and gratitude for the trust and sacrifice you made to lend them money when you did not even know them. Some of the highlights are in the video below.
My name is Julie Pachico and I'm a Kiva Fellow who's had the privilege of spending the past three months working with Kiva's Field Partner Fundación para la Vivenda Progresiva (FVP). During my time here, the incredibly helpful and supportive FVP staff has made it possible for me to drive down countless bumpy, unpaved roads in search of Kiva clients to interview, learn border Spanglish such as troque (truck) and yonque (junkyard), attend a lucha libre fight and eat more homemade tamales and meat tacos than I ever thought possible.
FVP is unique among Kiva Field Partners because it's the only one based on the U.S.–Mexico border. Its main office is in Nuevo Laredo (on the border with Texas), with two other branch offices in the border towns of Ciudad Acuna and Piedras Negras. This video gives you a brief glimpse of FVP staff in action and shows images of clients Kiva lenders have helped fund: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYK3Xg_C9dg
During my time here, I've come to view the border as a particularly volatile and vulnerable region in Mexico. The majority of clients that I met immigrated here from the south of Mexico, seeking better-paying jobs or a chance to cross into the U.S. in order to find work. I met Kiva borrowers such as Gloria and Hidalga, who immigrated here from two of the poorest states in Mexico, Chiapas and Veracruz, in search of opportunity.
So how does microfinance enter the picture as a potential solution? With a loan from an organization such as FVP, a family can build an extra room in the front of their house, which they can later turn into a business. For instance, Laura expanded her front porch so she could rent the space out to other street vendors. Felicita used her loan to start a stationery shop and Julia used hers to start a grocery store. These businesses enabled both of them to work from home, generate extra income for the family and take care of their children. Businesses that are dependent on high sales during holidays can also take advantage of microloans to stock up on merchandise in preparation for the busy season: Martha used her Kiva loan to purchase flowers in preparation for the popular Dia de los Muertos festival, while Pati was able to buy decorations for her Christmas-themed store.
While I did meet some clients such as Guadalupe, who used her loans to expand her egg-selling business into a chicken rotisserie, the severity of the economic crisis in Mexico has caused most clients to depend on microfinance for day-to-day survival, rather than to escape poverty. Microfinance may be a stepping stone to alleviating poverty as opposed to a be-all, end-all solution, but it is a vital stepping stone nonetheless. What may be more important about microfinance in Mexico in the long term, though, is not the fact that it provides easily available capital, but the way in which it empowers women and transforms their role in their families. Over 44% of FVP's loans are to female entrepreneurs, and this number is only expected to increase.
I've come to see loan officers in particular as the underrated heroes of microfinance, as they are the ones who provide the strongest connection between the client and the organization. Through mud and dust, burning temperatures and near-freezing ones, the loan officers at FVP are often the first to arrive in the office and the last to leave. FVP is also notable for hiring an all-female staff in their two branch offices, where one of the managers commented to me that she'd considered recruiting new hires by placing an ad in the paper for “single-mothers only, because they're the ones who work the hardest!” You can watch a video about a typical day with a loan officer in Nuevo Laredo here: http://bit.ly/5iuG15
FVP staff wishes to send a personal message of thanks to Kiva lenders: “FVP thanks Kiva and Kiva lenders; their support for this program enables it to be accessible to more families in our community, which is seeing an improvement in its quality of life. We are convinced that through hard work and our daily efforts, we can continue to provide a better future for our community's children."
If you would like to support and learn more about microfinance in the border region of Mexico, please check out FVP's partner page on Kiva (http://bit.ly/5FUMlo) and join our lending team, the FVP Incredibles (http://bit.ly/7MLdhp). To view all currently fundraising loans from FVP, please click here: (http://bit.ly/5PkhuR).
I’m excited to be sending you this update from the field in Nicaragua. My name is Meg Gray and I have been working as a Kiva Fellow with Kiva’s field partner CEPRODEL in Managua from the beginning of October until last week. As you may know, all borrowers’ profiles are posted to Kiva’s website by local microfinance institutions (MFIs) such as CEPRODEL, who distribute loans on the ground to borrowers and are responsible for collecting repayments.
Since you have supported at least one (and hopefully many) CEPRODEL entrepreneurs, I want to start by telling you more about CEPRODEL and the entrepreneurs it works with. Founded in 1990, the Centro de Promoción del Desarrollo Local y Superación de la Pobreza, or CEPRODEL for short, now has 16 field offices and over 40 loan officers, who work with over 13,000 entrepreneurs throughout Western Nicaragua. The role of a field partner on Kiva.org is to provide a connection between Kiva.org and the individual entrepreneurs that you see on the website. Without field partners, it would be impossible for Kiva to reach so many entrepreneurs in so many different parts of the world. The microfinance organizations (MFIs) like CEPRODEL who become Kiva Field Partners are essential because they are knowledgeable about existing local needs and already have systems in place for finding clients, distributing loans, and collecting repayments. The benefits of such local knowledge were constantly shining through as I watched loan officers counsel clients on everything from postponing the sale of a cow because of the low market price for beef to the merits of cement versus cinderblock walls. In short, Kiva’s field partners make the whole Kiva process possible.
The Kiva entrepreneurs I met while working with CEPRODEL run the gamut. They are storeowners, ice cream makers, farmers, motorcycle repairmen, hammock weavers, bakers, artisans, cattlemen, and more. I am grateful that they opened up to me and shared both their successes and the challenges facing their businesses. In general, it felt like a challenging time for entrepreneurs in Nicaragua. At least half of the clients I spoke to mentioned “la crisis” or “la situación” which are local shorthand for the world wide economic crisis. Though symptoms are beginning to ease in the US, the aftershocks are still reverberating through the Nicaraguan economy. Remittances (money sent to Nicaragua from relatives living abroad), which account for about 12% of the Nicaraguan GDP, are way down. The cost of basic food is soaring. A countrywide drought, which is causing foot shortages, has exacerbated this problem. When asked about the difficulties facing their businesses many CEPRODEL clients responded like Juana Solorzano did when she told me that business is not good right now. Juana runs a small restaurant and her sales are way down because people don’t have any money to spend, she says. For example, the sale of cooked plantains, a Nicaraguan staple, from her restaurant has dropped from around 125 plantains per weekend to roughly 30 since the crisis began.
Despite the hard times, I met many inspiring entrepreneurs who have used the opportunity of receiving a loan to improve their lives and the lives of their families. Marlon Gutierrez is a good natured and talkative man who runs a pulpería, which is a small general store, in Managua. As we chatted he explained that he used his first loan from CEPRODEL to fix up his house, but now he uses each loan (he is on his 4th) to invest in and grow his business and with the additional profits he is slowly fixing up his house to improve the lives of his wife and three children. Aurelia Hernandez, another CEPRODEL client, makes tejadas, which are thinly sliced fried plantains, and sells them outside a local factory. She lives in a small house with her husband, 6 children, and 5 grandchildren. As she walked me around her house, I counted 5 rooms including the open-air kitchen. Every wall was a patchwork of new and old cinderblocks and Aurelia proudly pointed at the new as she explained how the loans had allowed her to make her house much more livable for her family. She is optimistic that loans will help her expand and diversify her business in the future and help her earn enough to replace her roof which at the moment has several holes in it. Marlon and Aurelia are just a few examples of the inspiring CEPRODEL clients that I met. They, like so many others, are working hard to make the most of their Kiva loans.
I can truly say that working at CEPRODEL has been an amazing experience. Having the opportunity to meet so many inspiring entrepreneurs was a privilege. To share this experience with you, I put together a short video of some of the Kiva borrowers I met. These clips were taken as the borrowers were working and I hope they will bring to life the businesses, people, and stories that make up Kiva’s field partner CEPRODEL.
Though this loan finished sometime ago, we thought you might appreciate a current update. When Senor Elias was first interviewed, he was a member of Group San Cristobal. However, he has since quit the group. We were able to speak with another group member, Senora Nelly, treasurer of the group, about how her group and current loan were going. She reported that Senor Elias no longer wanted the stress of a loan and so quit nearly 1 year ago.
Senora Nelly is a member of Group San Cristobal, a group which has been receiving loans from EDAPROSPO for nearly 3 years. In the description it was incorrectly specified that Senor Elias's loan was an individual loan rather than a group loan among other informational discrepancies. In a group loan, each member of the group receives an individual loan but is part of a group of individuals bound by a group guarantee.
Senora Nelly was recently made treasurer this cycle after the group switched around the committee. Senora Nelly has a general store and payphone shop. She also opened another shop with pay phones down that road her daughter manages. With her most recent loan, she was able to invest in new phone booths that will help attract more customers. With her next loan, she would like to invest in equipment to start preparing fruit juices. She reported that the rest of the group are doing well with their payments.
Group San Cristobal and Elias were funded through Kiva’s partner EDAPROSPO, a microfinance institution in Peru. EDAPROSPO seeks to use micro-credit to foster productive commercial activity for the sake of economic and social development within vulnerable urban and rural sectors traditionally neglected by commercial banks.
If you would like to loan to another EDAPROSPO entrepreneur, please visit http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=93&status=fundRaising&sortBy=New+to+Old
Or join our lending team Fans of EDAPROSPO, to show your support of EDAPROSPO’s mission and make your future loans count toward our teams total. Its easy, just click the link below and the next time you make a loan, make it count for EDAPROSPO!
Asunta Maditio sells maize and millet flour and wanted a loan to buy more bags of maize and millet flour to sell.She was given the loan and started paying it back.From the profits she makes,she opened a store where she will be keeping and selling her food stuffs.
Greetings are coming to you from your borrower in Makeni, Sierra Leone. Fatmata Bangura who is the leader of the group call God’s Will is very pleased about the loan you gave to them and sends a lot of thanks to you on behalf of the entire group.
Fatmata used the loan to expand her business. She sent a colleague to neighboring Guinea and bought a bale of white cottons (30 yards make a length and 20 lengths make a bale). However, the SLL 800,000 loan she received could not buy her a bale, but added to the amount of money she already had, she was able to get a bale. She also bought inks, caustic soda, and powder. She paid experts to make designs on the white cottons and then she dyed the cottons to produce popular local clothes called Gara Lappers
Fatmata’s business improves tremendously as a result of the helping hand you rendered to her. Prior to your loan, she was trading with 8 lengths of cottons but with the help of the loan she was able to get a bale.
As a result of the growth in size and quality of her business, her profit-to-sale-margin increases. She uses her profit to pay school fees for her children. She has 3 school going children. She also uses the profit to feed herself and children and meet her everyday financial needs.
Notwithstanding, there is a gloomy side of this loan’s story for Fatmata Bangura. Fatmata has 2 group members who always delays or sometimes even refused repaying their loan. She would have to squeeze and repay on their behalf and began chasing them to be refunded. Because of this, Fatmata has resolved not to be part of this group anymore – she can either form a new group or cease taking a loan altogether.
She is however very grateful to you for the helping hand. The loan, she told me has been very helpful and she should have improved more than this had it not being for the wrong people she formed a group with.
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬ Salone Micro Finance Trust (SMT) also says THANKS to all of you who have made this loan possible to our clients. We hope you will continue to give out your support in the form of loans to the people of Sierra Leone through SMT. To see if we currently have loans in need of funding by Kiva Lenders, please copy and paste the following link: http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=57&status=All&sortBy=New+to+Old Or visit our site: http://www.salonemicrofinancetrust.com and follow the link to our Kiva groups.
While it has been two weeks since a 7.1 earthquake struck Port au Prince, Haiti the destruction and loss of lives left as a result of the natural disaster is tremendous.
Kiva’s field partner in Haiti, Esperanza International, has offices located in the northern part of Haiti, Trou du Nord (close to Cap Haitian), in which it is confirmed that the offices as well as all staff members were spared from harm. However, Esperanza has confirmed that two associates who were in the capital tragically lost their lives during the earthquake. In addition, 40% of Esperanza’s borrowers in the Dominican Republic are of Haitian origin and have been adversely impacted by the disaster. This link is particularly important as many of the Haitian clients in the Dominican Republic regularly send remittances to their relatives in Haiti, which will prove to be a vital lifeline to help sustain these families in the months ahead.
Clients in Haiti now more than ever face a whole new set of challenges: many associates have already and will continue to take in family members fleeing from Port-au-Prince; hundreds of borrowers cope with the emotional distress of losing family and friends; associates who once traveled frequently to the capital as a commercial center must find news ways of obtaining necessary supplies and materials for their businesses; and many will be facing elevated prices as the supply of products is now limited and the demand is elevated, etc.
Esperanza has responded to the disaster situation at hand by working with already established partners in Port-au-Prince and southern Haiti in addition to various U.S. and Dominican organizations. It is currently in the early stages of an immediate disaster relief plan, which is targeting 10,000 families to send immediate relief to. In addition, Esperanza has collaborated with the U.S. organization, Operation Rainbow, performing around 100 surgeries to date in the border town of Jimaní as well as with surgeons from Rush Presbyterian Hospital of Chicago to treat victims in Carrefour, the epicenter of the earthquake. This immediate aid will be followed by a longer-term relief process, which will focus on 5,000 families (32, 250 individuals) to provide rehabilitation to in the form of family housing, education, water/preventative health, and income generation.
With regards to the earthquake’s effects on Esperanza’s microfinance operations, it is likely that in the months ahead many of Esperanza’s loans in Haiti may need to be refinanced or cancelled as clients deal with the aforementioned challenges, however, we intend to stand by our clients and continue to offer access to credit, as well as our range of complimentary services, as the situation permits. Additionally, Esperanza intends to go ahead with its long term plan of opening three more branch offices in the next three years in Haiti to expand access to credit to Haitian borrowers.
Despite the many obstacles borrowers face in the months ahead, associates have continually proven capable of overcoming adversity and showing resiliency in difficult times. They have found innovative and creative ways to create new income streams and this ability will be essential to a sustainable rebuilding process in Haiti. More than ever, micro-finance has the potential to be a vital part of this re-growth. We encourage you now, more than ever, to finance Haitian borrowers through Kiva microloans.
If you would like to learn more about Esperanza and HOPE International, or to find out ways you can help, – including their current humanitarian relief and other support efforts in Haiti – please visit Hope’s website. You can also visit Esperanza’s website or email disasterresponse@esperanza.org.
David Obire he didn’t have any issues repaying his loan on time! He hopes to own a world class business in the future. He says his goals now are to continue moving forward “little by little. He is happy because he has seen his business turning aroung for good and this gives him constant joy. He says thanks to all kiva lenders for the financial support.
Desde las 5:30 de la mañana hasta las 10:00 de la nochee están abierta la pulperia de doña María Granados quien invirtió el crédito en la compra de mayor cantidad en granos básicos, javones, pastas, embutidos etc. y en otros productos como pinturas, perfumes, desodorante, pastas dental, cepillos....etc. Esto le permitio tener mayores ganancias y na mejor calidad de vida.
The Php 16,000 loan has already been disbursed to Bizard Epil. The loan was utilized to buy upholstery materials like foam, leather, wood and supplies like glue, thread and rugby. “I thank the people who are lending money to me because they enable me to save my profits for future use,” Bizard says.
If you would like to support CCT, join our new lending team: http://www.kiva.org/community/viewTeam?team_id=9184
For more information on CCT, please visit: http://www.kiva.org/about/aboutPartner?id=144
Charity has been engaged in her business over to years. She is very happy with her business. Because from now on she earns more profits she was to sustain her family needs.She now makes international and local designs for her customers. She was able to thank the KIVA lenders and LAPO microfinance. She says GOD BLESS.............
As we enter the holiday season, XacBank would like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Here's an e-card we created for you, featuring XacBank's staff and Kiva borrowers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqkvv532mFI
I'm Jane Lim, a Kiva Fellow who served for the last two and a half months at XacBank, a Kiva Field Partner in Mongolia. My fellowship just ended, and until a few days ago I was in Mongolia, experiencing the bitter cold and breathing in the smoke that pervades the city of Ulaanbaatar due to widespread coal burning by surrounding ger districts. A ger is a traditional Mongolian tent, round and white, and very much a part of modern Mongolia. In the middle of each ger is a rustic stove used to burn fuel to warm the ger and to cook. The past few years have seen a steep rise in pollution as ger districts and their accompanying coal burning have rapidly grown due to an increased number of migrants from the countryside.
In my last few days in Mongolia, it was a common lament by my colleagues in XacBank's microfinance department that I would be missing their New Year’s party. New Year’s parties in Mongolia are a huge celebration—more than just an annual dinner and dance, these are events for which people get decked out in their finest, more than any other event in the year. When I visited Oyun Pildulam, a Kiva borrower who works as a tailor right by XacBank's Chingeltey branch, her wall was covered with custom-made fancy dresses for the New Year—sequins and feathers galore with nary a hint of understatement.
Other tailors I've met are not as lucky as Oyun, who has five employees and gives classes to aspiring tailors. Gantuya Narmandah, another Kiva borrower I met, struggles to find stalls willing to sell the products she sews in her home. She lost her job in a sewing factory after the collapse of socialism in Mongolia in 1990. Many industries were privatized following the introduction of democracy, and in the process, many Mongolians lost their state jobs and turned to running their own microenterprises. Gantuya wasn't the first or last Kiva borrower I met who cited the impact of the change in political systems. Tsend-Ayush Lhagva used to work as a truck driver, but after dabbling with different small businesses, she has settled on making Mongolian boots and is finding it to be the most profitable thing she has done. In my short time in Mongolia, I had the good fortune to meet a wide variety of Kiva borrowers and learned that they can be extremely diverse, yet similar.
Unlike many other Kiva Field Partners, XacBank is a registered commercial bank. XAC LLC started in 1998 with funding from the United Nations Development Programme and was Mongolia's first registered non-bank financial institution. It later merged with another non-bank financial institution to form XacBank, and then started commercial operations. Despite being a commercial bank, XacBank has never wavered in its social mission; it can be argued that its commercial profitability has given it the ability to design and implement initiatives that benefit the poor.
While I was at XacBank, I got to know two of these initiatives at a deeper level. Both struck me as relevant and practical. The first is the franchising of savings and credit cooperatives (SCCs). Because Mongolia is sparsely populated, the cost of reaching borrowers in rural areas is high. It is not economically viable for XacBank to open an extensive number of branches throughout Mongolia, so the bank has decided to help strengthen local SCCs in order to aid the rural community. XacBank currently supports local SCCs by providing training, expertise and wholesale loans; it is also planning to provide mobile banking, leasing and micro-insurance via SCCs. The good thing about franchised SCCs is that SCC members keep their own profits, which further enrich the local community.
The other initiative is the introduction of eco-loans. In order to mitigate the pollution brought about by coal burning in winter, XacBank has introduced loans for subsidized environmentally friendly products such as energy efficient stoves and ger blankets. Ger blankets are an alternative form of insulation that wraps around a ger, keeping it warm without the need to burn fuel. Eco-loans were introduced this winter and XacBank hopes they will be popular.
Having worked at XacBank for the past few months, I have witnessed the potential the bank has to expand and refine its services to increase profitability as well as to aid the poor. XacBank values its partnership with Kiva not just because Kiva lends at a 0% interest rate and accepts borrower defaults, but also because the organization, like Kiva lenders, attaches value to the human connection.
To share this enthusiasm with XacBank's Kiva borrowers, we created a video to illustrate to them in their language how the Kiva process works. Here is an English version of the same video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiXu1ICaz_Y
XacBank became a Kiva partner in January 2009 and, with your help, has since fundraised over US$1 million on Kiva, and has administered loans to over 1,000 Kiva borrowers. We hope that you will continue your support of Kiva and XacBank in 2010 and beyond—a little goes a long way!
Thank you so much for supporting an entrepreneur from the Dominican Republic or Haiti! As a Kiva Fellow, I have spent the last three months working with Kiva’s Field Partner Esperanza International, visiting borrowers and writing updates about their businesses.
As you may know, all borrowers’ profiles are posted on Kiva’s website with the help of microfinance institutions (MFIs) such as Esperanza. With several branch offices located in the rural areas of these two countries, Esperanza reaches entrepreneurs in the most remote and undeserved communities. This makes possible the connection between Kiva lenders and borrowers in some of the neediest areas of the Dominican Republic.
Most of the loans Esperanza International disburses are group loans, inspired by the Grameen method, which consists of making a loan to a group of people living in the same community, after providing them with a short training program that includes basic business advice and training about the Esperanza program. All the borrowers from the group are bound to pay together, and the repayment meetings that are led in the communities help strengthen the links between local entrepreneurs. It is not uncommon for neighbors to attend these meetings and decide to join the groups to start a new project, or strengthen an existing one through a loan.
Esperanza is a strong supporter of the idea of mutual support and local initiatives to lift whole communities out of poverty. For instance, the institution recently started to run literacy programs in many of the communities they work with. These programs are led by the most educated among its borrowers. Esperanza has also been supporting local projects, such as a school that was created by one of its long term borrowers, named Milàn.
I had the unique chance to meet Milan and visit her school. She was just back from a trip across the United States (her first time out of the Dominican Republic) to tell her story. Milàn took out a loan from Esperanza in 1998 that allowed her to increase the income from her clothing business. Like many Esperanza borrowers, she was selling clothes on the street. Milan felt that she wanted to do something for the children of her neighborhood who didn’t have the opportunity to go to school, so she started a little school inside her house, providing children with basic literacy lessons, and a meal at lunch. Milan continued her clothing business and from the income generated, she could expand her school, until she reached 100 students (divided in two classes of 50 students on morning and afternoon). As her project was taking shape, she received further financial support from Esperanza and other non-profit organizations. The school I visited is a 2 story building, with eight classrooms, a library and computer room. Almost 500 students are attending the school, and follow an education program acknowledged by the Dominican ministry of Education, provided by 17 teachers (working part-time). Meanwhile, Milan has been able to complete her own education that she had left shortly before reaching high school. She is now about to get an advanced education degree that will certify her as a principal.
Recently, I was visiting a group of borrowers, who took their first loan funded by Kiva lenders. Maria, and one of the women of the group had a very similar story to Milan’s. Besides her clothing and home accessories business, she runs a local school, in her house, where she is the teacher of a class of 15 preschool children aged from 3 to 5. She is a well respected woman in her community. Her neighbors call her “la profesora” (the teacher). Although her activity as a teacher is not a source of income, it definitely is a great motivation for her to succeed in her business. Maria has recently added new products to her home accessories such as aromatic candles that she hopes will increase her sales during Christmas time.
Thanks to their commitment to reach the most isolated communities, and the indispensable financial support they receive from Kiva lenders, Esperanza may be fostering, through Maria, a new local project that will bring great benefits to the community.
Let’s wish Maria and all of Esperanza’s borrowers great success in their attempt to improve their life condition and access to education in the Dominican Republic. For this reason I entreat all of you who have lent to Esperanza International in the past to continue doing so, and continue to support this worthy project!
Please consider joining Esperanza’s Lending Team by clicking here.
Renato is glad for the loan he received from the KIVA lenders. He used the loan to purchased additional musical instruments for his business stall in Cauayan City. His musical tutorial services expanded also by simply having one branch in Tuguegarao City when he started to borrow loan from KIVA.
Señorita Evelin B. Salazar Medrano is 19 years old. She is a single woman and lives at the home of her parents. They live in a dairy-farm zone not very far away from the city. This morning, I had the opportunity to stop over at Evelin’s home to see how this loan cycle has been going for her. Unfortunately, Evelin was away from the house, but her mother Rosario was able to update me on Evelin’s loan. With the loan from CIDRE, Evelin purchased a new dairy cow and more cattle feed, such as soy husks, for the livestock. The soy is very much needed, because Cochabamba has been suffering from a drought that has caused cattle feed prices to skyrocket. Evelin’s dairy cows have been doing great in their production, and she has had no trouble making her loan repayments in a timely fashion. The loan has helped Evelin to grow her earnings, which helps as their dairy cooperative is currently in the process of purchasing a ‘modulo’ (large, metal milk container and preserver). Evelin is contributing some of her earnings, along with the other cooperative members, so that they can purchase this tank. The ‘modulo’ will help all members of the dairy cooperative preserve their milk and maintain a higher quality of milk when selling to the local dairy company, Pil. Lastly, I would like to point out that there was a typo made in the making of Evelin’s Kiva profile. Her name should read “Salazar” where it says “Almanza.” Below, you will find a photo taken of her mother this morning during our visit. CIDRE’s mission is to contribute to the sustainable development of small-level dairy/livestock producers and of rural and semi-urban micro and small businesses, through the provision of quality financial services. Their principle goal is to be a leading entity in the provision of financial services, characterized by providing efficient service with sound ethics, creativity, and social engagement with the community. CIDRE is a new Kiva partner as of June 2009; to support more of CIDRE’s Kiva clients, follow this link!: http://bit.ly/1A5JLc
Gladys is 38 years old, lives with her boyfriend, and has one 15-year-old daughter. She is a dairy farmer, and with the milk that her cows produce, she makes and sells yogurt and soft cheese. Gladys has worked with dairy cows now for over 20 years. She lives in the center of Maica, a community about 40 minutes outside of the city of Cochabamba. This morning, I had the opportunity to stop by Gladys’s home to see how this loan cycle has been going for her. Unfortunately, Gladys was away at the market, but her husband Pedro was able to give me an update on their family business. With the loan from CIDRE, Gladys purchased more cows. Their family business has been going well, and they have not had too much trouble making repayments in a timely fashion. Pedro firmly believes that these two new cows will translate to greater earnings for him and his wife. Their main goal at the moment is to save all the extra money they can so they can purchase a ‘modulo’ (large, metal milk container and preserver) for preserving their milk to sell to the large local dairy company, Pil. The ‘modulo’ will preserve their milk and help it maintain a better quality, so that Pil will pay them more for their milk. Below is a photo I took of Gladys’s husband Pedro and their daughter this morning. CIDRE’s mission is to contribute to the sustainable development of small-level dairy/livestock producers and of rural and semi-urban micro and small businesses, through the provision of quality financial services. Their principle goal is to be a leading entity in the provision of financial services, characterized by providing efficient service with sound ethics, creativity, and social engagement with the community. CIDRE is a new Kiva partner as of June 2009; to support more of CIDRE’s Kiva clients, follow this link!: http://bit.ly/1A5JLc
EL CREDITO AYUDO A MEJORAR SU VIVIENDA, DE FLORENCIA Y SU ESPOSO, LOS CUALES COSTRUYERON UNA HABITACION MAS EN LA MISMA, CON ESTO SE INCREMENTARON LA CANTIDAD DE INGRESOS QUE TENDRAN YA QUE ELLOS CUENTAN CON MAS DE 15 HABITACIONES LAS CUALES LAS ALQUILAN. FLORENCIA PAGO CON UNA EXCELENTE PUNTUALIDAD LA TOTALIDAD DEL CREDITO.
After finishing this loan, the group was somewhat modified (some members left and others entered) and the group took back a loan
Fernando is a new member of the group (the man with the cap on the picture). He is a craftsman and has had a business selling decoration items for forty years. The general coordinator of the groups of entrepreneurs in his community contacted him and this is how he has been able to get the first loan of his life.
He says he can get a little income from his work, and is proud to have always been able to pay his installments on time. He has the project to work on repairing houses and hopes to achieve it with the help of Esperanza.
He is very happy with the institution because he feels that he is trusted and he does not have to worry about collaterals because they are replaced by group solidarity.
Después de terminar este préstamo, el grupo se modificó un poco (unos socios salieron y otros entraron) y el grupo volvió a coger un préstamo Fernando es un nuevo miembro del grupo. Es artesano y tiene un negocio de venta de adornos desde hace cuarenta años. La coordinadora general de los grupos de emprendedores de su comunidad lo contactó y así pudo cobrar el primer préstamo de su vida. Dice que puede sacar un poco de ingresos de su trabajo, y esta orgulloso de haber podido pagar sus cuotas siempre a tiempo. Tiene el proyecto de trabajar en la reparación de casas y espera poder conseguirlo con la ayuda de Esperanza. Esta muy feliz con la institución porque siente que les dan confianza y no tiene que preocuparse por garantías, ya que la garantía viene de la solidaridad del grupo.
Le groupement Mokpokpo a bien utilisé son crédit en mettant en place les moyens de conservation qui ont lutté contre la détérioration des colas. Ces fonds leur a permis également d’acheter plus de marchandises et d’élargir plus leurs zones d’interventions.
Osborn Ugele says thanks to all KIVA lenders and LAPO Microfinance for their financial support. He used his KIVA loan to purchase electronics, to sell. He has finished his KIVA loan payment.
After continuing non-payment to Kiva, all active Ebony Foundation loans have now been defaulted. Kiva will continue to pursue recovery of funds on these loans and apply funds proportionally to lenders if and as funds are received. However, Kiva staff have judged the likelihood of recovery on these loans to be sufficiently low such as to update the loan status of these loans to “defaulted”.
Thank you for supporting the Ahon sa Hirap, Inc., otherwise known as ASHI, here in the Philippines.
Ahon sa Hirap, Inc. translated from Tagalog to English means “to rise up from poverty” and is the oldest example of the Grameen Bank approach to microfinance in the Philippines. Kiva launched its firs venture in the Philippines in November 2008. ASHI was among the first group of microfinance institutions partners.
All new Kiva microfinance partners start in what is called “pilot status,” which is like an introduction; a “getting to know you” phase. Both Kiva and the partner institution have to make sure the relationship is going to work – after all, Kiva now has over 120 partners in more than 50 countries, and that’s a lot of different ways of doing business.
After both parties have established some internal controls, a partner can be moved to active status – which means a higher fundraising limit and a more solid partnership. I’m happy to announce that, due to hard work from the President and staff members of ASHI, Kiva has approved ASHI for active field partner status! The main way you, the lender, will be able to see the difference is through increased loans on Kiva.org over the next few months.
For the past three months, since June 2009, I have been serving at ASHI as a Kiva fellow, assisting in the transition from pilot to active status. The time has flown by and I can hardly believe that my fellowship is coming to an end. I’ve learned so much about microfinance in practice and in the field, and I wanted to share a few of my biggest takeaways with you.
Microfinance is about more than a loan. The loan is the first step, the building block, and for that, Kiva lenders, I really thank you from the bottom of my heart, and from each and every ASHI member and staff. You are the ones who turn the key in the ignition. The borrower is the driver, They have a new path in front of them that can lead them out of poverty. What do I mean by "more than a loan?" Let me tell you.
Microfinance is also structured lending. Many people in poverty can get loans from loan sharks in their town, but it’s only a loan, and it has much higher interest rates. Oftentimes, that loan would have no guaranteed terms or repayments. Someone could knock on your door and say, “Pay up today.” Microfinance changes that. It puts structure into lending for the borrowers. It introduces them to term sheets, interest rates, and responsibility. It’s not “pay when you can” but “pay weekly during a group meeting with all of the members in your neighborhood.” It’s training and retraining and “checking in” and making sure the borrowers are using the funds for their businesses and, if not, why not? How can we help? It’s caring about their future.
Microfinance is also savings, with interest rates and an opportunity to plan for the future or put away for a rainy day.
Microfinance is house repair loans when typhoons and storms sweep the country and the borrowers' homes and huts are washed away. It’s having the capital to rebuild with stone instead of bamboo so, when they next storm arrives, your home is strong enough to withstand the winds. It’s having a home that is on solid ground and being proud of where you live.
Microfinance is educational loans and savings with better rates on interest paid and accrued. It’s an opportunity for borrowers to send their children, grandchildren, sometimes even nieces and nephews, to school.
Microfinance is life insurance policies for family members. Financial literacy classes for new members. Sustainable farming and agriculture classes. Training, tips on packaging, on taking goods to market, on how to grow your business in a way that will help lead you out of poverty.
Microfinance is community. It’s women gathering once a week to repay, discuss their business problems, and come together as a second family. Some borrowers that I’ve met joined ASHI because their husbands died and they were lonely. Some joined because, without a new primary business or ability to start a second business, their families were going to struggle to put food on the table. Some join quiet and shy and find their confidence and become leaders in their community. Many have told me they are better mothers, daughters, wives, sisters and friends because of ASHI and microfinance.
Yet, no matter WHY they joined – the result is always the same. Their lives are forever changed for having the opportunity to step up and make their lives better through business opportunities. It’s a hand up instead of a hand out. It’s strengthening the fabric of the poorest of the poor and changing the face of the economy of an entire country. Does that mean there are success stories at every turn? Not really. Most progress is slow and hard to see day-to-day. There is always struggle, always some who don’t make the right choices, always some that mean to, but can’t, and yes, always some that do. The thing to remember is that we all have to start somewhere and microfinance is a crucial stepping-stone in alleviating poverty worldwide.
Lastly, microfinance in enlightenment. It’s having a little extra change in your pocket for the first time in your life. Just imagine that for a moment. A little bit of change jingling in your pocket as you walk home from the market, and the feeling that goes with it. Microfinance is earning enough revenue to be able to afford medicine or hospital bills. It’s politicians taking notice that there is some access to capital in your town, and being motivated to have the roads paved, the schools repaired, and the community taken care of. It’s calling farmers, butchers, bakers, vendors, storeowners and craftsmen – ENTREPRENEURS.
Thank you for lending to an entrepreneur with South Pacific Business Development (SPBD) in Samoa. My name is Athan Makansi and I am the current Kiva Fellow for SPBD. During the past 10 weeks, I have greatly enjoyed chatting with the Kiva borrowers you have funded, and working with the wonderful staff at SPBD. Meeting all these fantastic people has been a tremendously inspirational experience.
I can tell you that the SPBD workers all work very hard to take care of the borrowers you have funded. All staff work from 8:30 AM until 5:30 PM every day, and some work on Saturdays. They spend all that time making sure women all over Samoa have the privilege of accessing financial services. A privilege that you, in part, make possible through your loans. Some days I work in the office helping the administrators and Kiva Coordinator at SPBD develop new, more efficient ways to post Kiva business profiles and journal entries. Some days I head out into the field to interview borrowers. Meeting the women borrowers in their villages and home settings is always exhilarating. These are my favorite days.
I accompany an SPBD center manager on his or her rounds to collect loan payments. At the designated time, the center manager stops at each village center, where the borrowers from that village are waiting. At these collection centers, I mingle with the women and talk with them about their loan, business, and life in Samoa. Jokingly, the women often ask me if I’m single. My reply of “yes” always evokes a chorus of giggles. Sometimes the group of women surprises me by breaking out in song and dance. Surrounded by such joyous people, I cannot resist the urge to dance too. For a more in-depth view of a center manager’s daily work, view my video and blog post here: http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2009/07/14/taking-care-of-business/
The structure of SPBD works well with the village system of Samoa. Each village has one center where all the women gather on their designated day to make loan payments. One of the most interesting things about Samoa is the strength of the village system. This affects Kiva borrowers in a few ways. Sometimes the matai, village chief, shows up at the SPBD center meetings to formally greet the loan officers. Often, villages sternly enforce the borrower’s repayments. The strictest chiefs have a rule that if the women don’t pay back their loan, they are fined. A village’s reputation is extremely important. The matai does not want his village’s reputation tarnished by a delinquent borrower. Although this is a harsh rule, it does teach the borrowers good financial stewardship. I’ve noticed in these villages, the meetings run very smoothly, because the loan officers don’t have to chase after irresponsible clients.
Before I came to Samoa, I was most excited about talking to the women borrowers about their lives and stories. After 10 weeks here in Samoa, that is still my favorite part of my job. Every lady graciously shares her story. I feel humble every time. Here are two of my favorite stories from my stay in Samoa.
Like many Samoans, Tumua Senituri learned how to sow crops from her parents, who were farmers. Tumua inherited 3.5 acres of land from her father. But she was never able to use the land at all, because she didn’t have the resources to buy seeds, fertilizer, harvesting equipment, and other supplies. For a long time, the land was unused. Even today, Tumua only uses 2.5 of her 3.5 acres. Tumua has plans to expand her plantation over the next few years to include the last acre. Now that her business is doing well, Tumua hopes to be a role model for the other women by continuing to expand her own plantation. Using her own experience as a successful entrepreneur, Tumua advises the women on their businesses and budgeting skills. See Tumua’s full journal entry here: http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=119129.
Tasi Rasch raises and sells cows to other Samoans for weddings, birthdays, and other large celebrations (called falavelaves in Samoan). These celebrations often include an entire village, so an entire cow is cooked to feed the many celebrants. Her loan from SPBD has allowed her to expand her business activities to include a small plantation, which gives her a more stable income. See Tasi’s full journal entry here: http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=99924. You can view more pictures of Tasi and other SPBD borrowers on Samoa’s image gallery: http://www.kiva.org/about/imagegallery/#samoa.
On behalf of Kiva and SPBD, thank you again for your continued support of entrepreneurs in Samoa.
La Asociación Comunal Yungueñitas que pertenece al Centro Focal Panamericana, durante el préstamo obtenido, cumplió con normalidad sus pagos, reuniéndose dos veces al mes, los lunes a las 12:30, capacitándose en un 30% en temas de Fortalecimiento, 20% Salud y 40% en Destrezas en Negocios. Todas invirtieron en sus negocios, en su mayoría comprando insumos al por mayor y de esta manera rebajar costos y obtener mayores ganancias. Actualmente esta asociación solicitó un nuevo préstamo.
I’m Alison Carlman, a Kiva Fellow working with K-MET in Kisumu. You’re receiving this e-mail because you contributed to a loan for one of K-MET’s borrowers on Kiva. Thank you for supporting these inspiring business people. I wanted to give you an update about what many of them are doing!
Most of K-MET’s borrowers are volunteers promoting health and education in their communities. This means that not only are they micro-entrepreneurs (selling vegetables, doing tailoring, or running some other business in town), but they also regularly take time out of their working day to visit orphans, children, widows, and other sick or vulnerable people in their community. They work with K-MET supervisors to refer malnourished children and ill patients to the outpatient clinic or to the hospital. They also make sure that caregivers have the right information about how to care for their families and neighbors.
The community health care workers (mostly women) form a corps of empowered volunteers who are changing their communities from the ground up; many of them live on less than $1 a day. Earlier this week, a woman told me that she’d like Kiva lenders to know that “we visit the sick. We take care of the sick. At times, the sick will not have anything, and we are forced to give money from our own pockets so that they can eat.” This is truly a group of people who are sharing their small amount of resources with each other to serve more than 4,000 at-risk people in Kisumu.
I’d like you to see this short video demonstrating the work that community health workers do and the conditions in which they work and live. The first shot is of Alice, a Kiva borrower and tailor in the Nyalenda slum of Kisumu. She is pictured at her sewing and embroidery stall. I followed her as she and her K-MET supervisor, Beatrice, visited some of Alice’s patients in the community. I hope that by seeing and hearing the story of Alice you are as inspired as I am by the work that K-MET’s Kiva borrowers are doing!
Thanks again for your support of K-MET and Kiva entrepreneurs. Please consider joining the K-MET Fans Lending Team to continue following this field partner.
Fati Bolenge remercie très sincèrement tous les prêteurs y compris Kiva. Ces prêts sont entrain de l’aider à développer son affaire. Fati vend des pièces de rechanges et moteurs automobiles occasion d’Europe. Le crédit qu’elle a récemment obtenu lui a servi d’acheter deux moteurs autos à revendre. Son affaire évolue normalement malgré la hausse des prix sur le marché due à la dépréciation de la monnaie locale. Son rêve reste toujours vivant
Với những người phụ nữ nghèo việc có nguồn vốn ổn định để đầu tư cho các dự án phát triển kinh tế gia đình là điều hết sức có ý nghĩa. Cũng như nhiều phụ nữ khác, ngay sau khi nhận được vốn vay từ tổ chức kiva chịAn đã sử dụng để đầu tư mua thêm phếliệu phục vụ cho công việc tái chế nhựa của gia đình.Nhờ có thêm vốn gia đình chị đã có điều kiện để có thêm nguồn nguyên liệu ổn định, công việc sản xuất, kinh doanh của gia đình chị năm qua đã được thực hiện rât thuận lợi. Nhờ việc đầu tư vốn hiệu quả thu nhập của gia đình chịAn đã tăng bình quân khoảng 70 USD/ tháng Khi được hỏi về những người cho vay của tổ chức Kiva chị trả lời “ Chúng tôi rất biết ơn những người cho vay vốn của tổ chức Kiva vì nhờ có họ mà thu nhập của gia đình chúng tôi đã có nhiều đổi thay trong năm qua. Chúng tôi không chỉ có điều kiện để mở rộng sản xuất, kinh doanh mà còn có thêm điều kiện để nâng cao chất lượng cuộc sống của gia đình. Chúng tôi mong muốn họ sẽ tiếp tục giúp đỡ cho chúng tôi – những người phụ nữ tại Việt nam để chúng tôi có thêm điều kiện phát triển kinh tế gia đình.
Sim Vi Sal lives in Siem Reap, a few miles away for the down town with his wife and their children. Sim took out a loan to raise pigs, purchase the feed and rice to make rice wine. Before, he just raise a few pigs but since he loan from CREDIT he is able to raise more pigs. The income has been increased about $2 to $3 per day. With the increased profit, he is able to purchase feed and raise more pigs.
Sim would like to see his business expanded and his income continue to increase, and in the future he will not hesitate to borrow again. He looks forward to the opportunities provided by this loan and has been very pleased with the results so far.
Thank you so much for your generosity and kindness toward Sim Vi Sal and his family. CREDIT appreciates your help and looks forward to partnering with you again in the future to continue to provide quality financial services to Cambodia's poor entrepreneurs.
Your loan to the business or businesses above will not be repaid in full and is now considered defaulted. To learn about the reasons for this default, please visit FSMA’s Field Partner page.
We have done our best to provide comprehensive details about why your loan defaulted and what Kiva is doing to help prevent situations like this from happening in the future. A vast majority of our Field Partners are healthy organizations that are very capable of administering your loans with the highest integrity.
If you have any questions, after visiting FSMA’s Field Partner page and reviewing the information there, please let us know.
AGBEVE Koami a obtenu son crédit qui fut son premier en octobre pour s'approvisionner en pièces détachés plus précisement en pneus et amortisseurs de véhicule.son revenu augmenté de près de 25% , avec ce surplus de revenu il a pu satisfaire convenablement ses clients et survient correctement aux charges de sa famille. il remercie WAGES et les prêteurs Kiva.
AGBOZOMEVI komla a obtenu en octobre un crédit de WAGES qui lui a permis d'acheter de la marchandise et de vendre en ses périodes de rentrée scolaires où les couturiers confectionnent beaucoup de tenues pour les élèves. son revenu s'est accru en cette période là mais actuellement son revenu a connu une baisse,la période de la rentrée scolaires étant proche, il projette rembourser son crédit par anticipation et solliciter un autre crédit pour acheter de la marchandises pour réaliser de bons chiffres d'affaire.
I apologized for the delay in updating you on the progress of my family business. With the loan that you provided my brother in law, he bought the embroider material (colored thread, beads and clothes) and completed the orders by preparing embroider dresses.
Before the loan he gave me 5,000 (PKRS) but now he gives me 8,000 (PKRS) per month which helps me to pay off the utilities.
He is very thankful to each of you for your loan. He has totally repaid his loan without any difficulty.
Balqees hopes that you will continue to support her fellow Asasah associates on Kiva.
During a routine audit of Field Partner EDAPROSPO, Kiva discovered a number of discrepancies between the information posted to the Kiva website and what actually occurred on the ground. Specifically, many loans uploaded to the website before December 2008 contain inaccurate loan amounts, terms and/or loan uses.
This is in violation of Kiva policy, and as such, as soon as we were alerted to a possible violation we placed EDAPROSPO on "pause." After placing them on pause, Kiva proceeded to execute a complete verification of every loan EDAPROSPO posted to the Kiva website; in total we examined 757 loans.
As a result of our audit, we have discovered that 52% of the loans posted to the Kiva website by field partner EDAPROSPO contain data inaccuracies. 98% of these inaccuracies pertain to loans posted to the Kiva website before December 2008, when EDAPROSPO was under a different management team. After significant management turnover at the end of 2008, almost all loans on the Kiva website contain complete and accurate information and these loans comprise only 2% of the total discovered inaccuracies.
You are receiving this email as we wanted to alert you that, after our verification efforts, Kiva cannot confirm that the specific loan you funded was actually disbursed. We can, however, confirm that the person you lent to is an EDAPROSPO borrower. Because EDAPROSPO has decided to guarantee all loans made on Kiva, you have continued to receive repayments on schedule.
Because the new management team has proven that they are committed to providing accurate and transparent information to the Kiva website, and because they have repaid almost all of the inaccurate loans on-time, Kiva has decided to re-open the Kiva-EDAPROSPO relationship. During this new "pilot" phase on Kiva, we will be working closely with the new EDAPROSPO team, including their internal and external auditors, to continually verify new EDAPROSPO loans posted to Kiva, and if we are alerted to any new inaccuracies we will pause their relationship with Kiva and follow-up accordingly.
If you have any questions, please visit Kiva's Help Center at http://www.kiva.org/about/help.
Today I have the unique pleasure of sending you the very first Field Update on borrowers from BRAC Tanzania. You have all contributed to at least one of these Tanzanian women’s loans, and I am sure that you are wondering how they are doing!
My name is Sarah Forbes and I am a Kiva Fellow currently working with BRAC Tanzania, one of Kiva’s Field Partners. All of Kiva’s field partners are stand-alone organizations that partner with Kiva in order to receive loans for the borrowers that you as lenders choose to support. BRAC is one of the largest of these field partners, being one of the largest southern non-governmental organizations in the world. Kiva and BRAC work together in three different African countries – Uganda, South Sudan, and Tanzania. In Tanzania, we have been working together for about 18 months, providing loans to women who have been denied access to the formal financial sector. With more than 100 branches across the country, BRAC Tanzania is reaching tens of thousands of women working their way out of poverty. Your loans, which we provide to BRAC Tanzania at 0% interest, are enabling their programs to expand even further.
Over the past four months, I have had the great opportunity to meet with many of BRAC’s borrowers – women who meet the challenges before them with a strength and sense of humor of which I am in awe. Each one of these meetings has given me new perspective on life and work in Tanzania and what having access to credit can mean for these women.
Martha Kamagi, for instance, received her loan in April 2009 and has already used most of it to give her small business a significant boost. Or businesses, I should say, since like many women in Tanzania, Martha has three separate small businesses.
Unlike most women however, Martha’s primary business is house painting, a trade usually performed by men. She has been making a living by painting houses since 1983 and now has a large network through which she finds job opportunities. Her business is marketed by word of mouth and Martha’s mobile phone is probably one of her greatest assets. In a trade dominated by men, Martha claims to rarely have problems with the sex issue – in fact, many of her jobs come through male contacts in her field. She is doing her part to even the sex disparity, however, and has trained six other women to become house painters. The painting is seasonal work, though, so Martha also works as a seamstress and hair stylist. Creativity and manual labor mix to provide Martha with a steady income that, combined with her husband’s income, supports her four children and her mother in the small home that they own. With the loan from BRAC Tanzania, Martha no longer needs to borrow painting supplies from her local hardware shop, which charges exorbitant interest rates, and she has been able to invest in better sewing equipment and fabrics.
Like most of the borrowers I have spoken with, Martha expresses her desire that her children lead a better life than she has. For them she desires greater education and financial security. The groundwork that is set for the future is one of the greatest effects of microcredit. While it may not immediately lift a family out of poverty, it provides small means with which entrepreneurs can improve their businesses, increase their profits, and send their children to school, enabling the next generation the chance to lead the lives their parents wish for them.
BRAC Tanzania strives to give the female borrowers in their microfinance program these chances to improve their businesses, their lives, and those of their children. Each day, and with each loan, the talented and dedicated staff reach out to those who are in vulnerable positions and often marginalized by the formal business sector. While logistical constraints prohibit BRAC Tanzania’s staff from collecting journal updates for each of their Kiva borrowers, it is our hope that, with a new system in place, in the future you will be hearing more stories about the progress of these incredible women.
Thank you for your loan. I hope that you will continue to invest in the borrowers of BRAC Tanzania by lending to the currently fundraising loans.
Sincerely,
Sarah Forbes Kiva Fellow BRAC Tanzania
As an additional note, I would like to take this opportunity to mention the current situation regarding the Kiva website showing BRAC Tanzania’s delinquency rate to be near 30%. This does NOT reflect the true delinquency rate of the individual borrowers, but rather is the product of registration requirements here in Tanzania that are delaying the wiring of funds from BRAC Tanzania to Kiva. The Central Bank of Tanzania is requiring certain registration from BRAC Tanzania before it will send the repayment funds out of the country to Kiva. The paperwork is taking longer than expected, however, as soon as the required registration goes through the Central Bank of Tanzania, the funds will be sent and all repayments will be made to Kiva and to the lenders. We are now waiting on the clearance from the Central Bank of Tanzania and thank you for your patience and understanding as to why the repayments are delayed.
Manina Fred is so pleased with his lending group of Kamu kamu that he is able to access loans. The loans have enabled his wholesale shop to grow and he is now able to make more profits from the increased sales resulting from being able to stock the shop with more merchandise. He hopes to have more loans so that in future, he can be able to open up another branch for increased income.
I have met over one hundred beneficiaries of your investments since my arrival in Paraguay. After days spent visiting Kiva borrowers, with my bus idling in Asuncion’s rush hour traffic and my lungs swimming in diesel exhaust, I spent a lot of time reflecting on Paraguay’s micro-entrepreneurs. My thoughts tended to bounce from borrower to borrower, from business to business: the garrulous restaurateur, the sun-soaked brick-maker, the struggling seamstress—different lives facing unique challenges. But their differences weren’t what stood out. Instead, I found myself focusing on a uniting theme: “asi, no más” a ubiquitous Paraguayan phrase that roughly translates to “That’s just how it is.”
The phrase, an attitude for some, practically a modus operandi for others, evokes a number of currents running through Paraguayan life. Most dominant is an incredible, nearly universal tranquility in the way Paraguayans confront life and its challenges. For many of the Kiva borrowers I met (such as Miguel Arce, Alejandra Alvarez , and Facunda Perez), behind that tranquility were razor sharp ambition and entrepreneurial acumen that helped their businesses grow and flourish. For others, “asi, no más” translated into a more passive willingness to accept the status quo.
The attitude itself wasn’t what struck me—with a history of political tyranny and an absolutely oppressive spring/summer climate, it is not surprising to find a culture that likes to keep an even keel and is disinclined to rock the boat. What was striking was how often my amateur analyses of Paraguay’s fight against poverty could be boiled down to this simple phrase. For families who were truly struggling, it felt like it was the driving force behind their ability to make do, to exist with dignity. For those who were staying afloat and growing when possible, “asi, no más” was an ability to withstand setbacks, to remain confident that, since that’s just how it is, eventually things would get better and hard work would be rewarded.
For all of these families, whether they were at the very bottom of the income ladder or perched somewhere closer to the middle, the capital provided by Fundación Paraguaya was seen as a much needed tool for economic stability and growth. To read more about how microfinance fits into the development puzzle in Paraguay, check out The Feel-Good Line, an entry I wrote for the Kiva Fellows blog.
Stay Connected!
Click hereto see more fundraising loans from Fundación Paraguaya.
To stay connected to Paraguay and to all the great work being done at Fundación Paraguaya, join our lending team Team Fundación Paraguaya. (New to Kiva Lending Teams? Learn more here)
Thank you again for investing in Paraguay and being a part of Kiva!
Sincerely,
Nick Cain Kiva Fellow
Questions? Comments? Feel free to write me at nick.cain@fellows.kiva.org
P.S. I would like to say a special thank you to the 19 Kiva Lenders who are currently members of Team Fundacion Paraguaya. Your support has been so impressive! Together we have almost 200 loans to our name!
My name is Nick Cain and I am writing to you from Asunción, Paraguay, where I have been volunteering as a Kiva Fellow for the past four months. At some point since becoming a Kiva lender, you made a loan to a Paraguayan entrepreneur. By doing so, you joined a group of people who have collectively invested over $2.3 million in this country (a figure that astounds me each and every time I write it), and for that, I would like to start by saying thank you. Because of you, bricks are made, dresses are sewn, cell phones are sold, and mounds and mounds of Paraguay’s most popular snack, chipa, are cooked and eaten. Your money moves this economy.
The Field Partner: Fundación Paraguaya
As you may know, all Kiva loans are disbursed and administered by Field Partners—local institutions who vet clients and collect payments. In Paraguay, your capital flows through Fundación Paraguaya, a 24-year-old organization with a remarkable history and a bold social mission. Led by its founder, Martín Burt, Fundación Paraguaya brought microfinance to Paraguay in 1985, at a time when the country was still controlled by Alfredo Stroessner, an iron-fisted, secret police-wielding dictator whose maniacal 35-year rule left his country poor, uneducated, and disastrously bereft of infrastructure. But, with a touch of irony that is familiar to many microfinance practitioners, the same set of circumstances that left so many Paraguayans entrenched in poverty also created an informal economy that was teeming with micro-entrepreneurs and, Martín believed, hungry for credit. A chance meeting with a representative from microfinance pioneer ACCION International inspired Martín to act on his hunch that, for Paraguayans trying to lift themselves out of poverty, access to capital would be the key.
The Leader
After 24 years, three major international awards, and one term as mayor of Asunción, Martín Burt is still at the helm of Fundación Paraguaya, preaching the doctrine of sustainability and innovation to his team (now over 150 people strong) of managers, teachers, and loan officers. Since 1985, Fundación Paraguaya has disbursed over $37.5 million in loans to entrepreneurs across the country. Because it is a non-profit organization, when Fundación Paraguaya earns money on its loan portfolio, the money is re-invested into the operating budgets of its other innovative social ventures: a business education program for young people, two self-sufficient agricultural high schools, and a recently-announced Poverty Eradication Project that is every bit as ambitious as it sounds.
Recently, I sat down with Martín to hear a little more about how Fundación Paraguaya got started, where he sees it going, and how the interest-free capital provided by lenders like you helps more than just a single borrower. Check out the interview in the video below.
I am a Kiva Fellow and I'm finishing my Kiva Fellowship with Pearl Microfinance. I have been working in Kampala, Uganda with Pearl since February 2009. My daily tasks have mainly involved visiting the Kiva entrepreneurs and helping Grace, the Kiva Coordinator at Pearl, to improve the system that is used to post loans from Pearl on Kiva’s Web site.
First, I want to say - thank you for all your support for the entrepreneurs at Pearl Microfinance Limited!
Pearl has been working with Kiva for about 20 months. In that time, Kiva lenders have funded over 5,000 entrepreneurs and lent more than $1.5 million! You are receiving this message because you were one of those lenders.
Pearl is an interesting microfinance institution. Unlike many other microfinance institutions on Kiva, Pearl is a for-profit organization. Although this may make some people cringe, during my time here, I have come to see it as a tremendously positive thing. Pearl is constantly trying to make its processes as efficient and effective as possible. They are concerned about retention of clients and having a good reputation. I think this forces them to create loan products that are appealing to the clients.
Uganda’s microfinance market is very large. There are many clients and many providers. Although there are a large number of providers, the providers are not necessarily in multiple locations in Uganda. Pearl is one of the most widespread microfinance institutions in Uganda. It has offices in many different locations, and the credit officers are committed to using public transport or riding their motorcycles for hours to meet clients which makes the range even larger!
Until a few weeks ago, Pearl was not able to post loans from this huge geographical area on Kiva’s Web site. They could post only from their central location. While I was serving there as a Kiva Fellow, Grace and I were able to change the process so the Pearl employees can post from several locations in Uganda.
Pearls’ clients have been incredibly inspiring! I loved meeting them, hearing the ways that their lives have changed because of their loans, and meeting their children, who will grow up more comfortable because of the investments that their parents are making.
As Kiva Fellows, we are happy to give you an update on the effect of your loan on a Manuela Ramos/CrediMujer client. The entrepreneur profiles on Kiva’s Website are posted by local field partners, which are microfinance institutions that lend to the working poor to help them lift themselves out of poverty. For the past three months, we have been working with Kiva’s field partner, Manuela Ramos. The role of the field partner is to screen each entrepreneur, post his/her loan request on the Kiva Website, disburse the loan, and collect repayments.
Manuela Ramos is an organization dedicated to the advancement of Peruvian women. Founded in 1978, its programs include educating women, primarily in the rural areas of Peru, about gender equality, domestic violence, women’s rights and environmental awareness. It now has programs in fifteen locations throughout Peru, with seven regions operating microfinance programs. The microfinance program on which we worked, CrediMujer, assists groups of 15-30 women to come together, form a community bank, and take out a loan to use in their individual businesses. This is where Kiva comes in, by providing interest-free capital for Manuela Ramos to lend.
By supporting an entrepreneur who works with Manuela Ramos/CrediMujer, you are also supporting the progress of women living in the poorest regions of Peru. Although the loan amounts offered by Manuela Ramos are small (between $100 and $1,000), they make an impact on these women’s lives by providing them with the necessary capital to start and, sometimes, to expand their businesses.
Entrepreneurs partake in different businesses depending on the regions in which they live. Our experiences as Kiva Fellows in the field have also been influenced by the diverse geography in Peru. In the San Martin region, which is located in the Amazon basin of Peru, Diana encountered not only some very hot days, but also the warmth and generosity of its women, who would often give her treats like coconut water, fresh oranges, and cold soft drinks to help her cool off after a long day walking under the sun. Because San Martin's primary economic activity is agriculture, Diana visited many entrepreneurs with businesses related to agriculture or food production and sales. Growing cocoa, selling plantains, preparing local dishes like juanes (a mixture of rice, chicken, eggs, olives, and spices, wrapped in "bijao" plant leaf) and anticuchos (grilled meat on a skewer), and selling basic foods, were the most common business activities in this area.
In the city of Puno, nestled in the Peruvian Andes, Emily experienced the bitter cold and intense sun that the region is known for and saw the economic benefits that the tourism industry has brought to the area. Puno is located on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the world, and attracts many tourists who buy Peruvian tapestries, embroideries and alpaca sweaters, scarves and hats to keep warm. In addition to creating these artesian goods to sell to tourists, many Manuela Ramos entrepreneurs work in businesses that fatten livestock and operate small kiosks or general food stores.
Although we have been working separately in two different Manuela Ramos offices, we have focused on the same type of work, primarily writing journals for Manuela Ramos’s Kiva entrepreneurs. While the borrower profiles on Kiva’s site present information about how the entrepreneur plans to use the loan, journals provide follow-up information about how that loan was used and the effect it has had on the entrepreneur’s life. Although Manuela Ramos has employees and Kiva Fellows like us working hard to increase the number of journals written, financial and logistical constraints make it very difficult to produce a journal for each entrepreneur. Whether or not you have received a journal about the Manuela Ramos entrepreneur to whom you gave a loan, we hope that you will enjoy the story of Gloria, one of these entrepreneurs.
Gloria lives in the city of Tarapoto, the main commercial hub of the San Martin region. She makes “salchipapas,” a dish consisting of French fries and hot dog links, often accompanied by coleslaw or other variations, depending on the cook's particular style. Gloria's love for her business shows not only in the quality of her service and the food she serves, but also in her loyal customer base. Gloria has been a member of her community bank for quite a few years and her most recent loan of 1,000 soles (approximately $300 USD), was financed through Kiva by lenders like you. With this loan, Gloria bought tables, chairs and other supplies. This investment allowed her to better serve her customers and provide them with a more comfortable environment. However, Gloria's plans for her business don't end there. As an enterprising woman, she is thinking about the future of her business. To hear more about these plans from Gloria, see this short video interview (scroll all the way down):
You are receiving this journal update to thank you for the Kiva loan you made to a client of IMCEC, a partner MFI in Senegal, West Africa.
IMCEC (also known as "UIMCEC") is working on putting in place an efficient, well-oiled system for sending journal updates. However, for the moment, they're a bit behind schedule! Please accept the video below in lieu of your regularly scheduled journal update. I hope that, through this video, you will feel a stronger connection to IMCEC and its clients. As you will see, there is lots of energy and life that goes into running an MFI, and IMCEC and its borrowers are grateful for the support of Kiva and lenders like you.
Enjoy the video, and thank you for your continued support of Kiva and IMCEC!
Seng Navy, 30, lives with her husband and three children in Kampong Cham, Cambodia. Seng sells traditional Cambodian medicine, and her husband is a fisherman. Seng requested this loan so she could buy equipment for her husband to fish.
A CREDIT MFI loan officer recently visited Sem to check on her progress. After receiving her loan, Sem bought more medicine, but didn't mention her husband's fishing business. Sem said that her daily income increased from $3 to $5, and that she's now able to reinvest in her business. She said that her standard of living has definitely improved.
Sem has no problems with her business, and makes her repayments on time. When asked, Sem said she was thankful to CREDIT for its good service, and to Kiva lenders for supporting her loan.
(For those viewing this update in email, this borrower's profile can be viewed here: http://partners.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=27603, and all loans from CREDIT MFI in Cambodia can be viewed here: http://partners.kiva.org/about/aboutPartner?id=9)"
Chhin Samnang, 26, lives with her husband and two children in Kampong Cham, Cambodia. Chhin is a farmer, and her husband is a motorcycle-taxi driver. Chhin requested this loan so she could buy a trailer for her husband's motorbike.
A CREDIT MFI loan officer recently visited Chhin to check on her progress. After receiving her loan, Chhin bought a trailer that her husband uses to transport wood with his motorbike. She said that the family's income increased because they could transport and sell much wood, but they sold the cart because her husband took an opportunity to go study in Malaysia. While they had the cart, the family's income increased to $12.50 per day.
Ith said there was a marked change in her standard of living, and that she was able to buy things to decorate the family's home. In the future, she hopes her family's standard of living continues to improve, and that her husband can earn even more money when he returns from Malaysia.
When asked, Chhin said she was thankful to CREDIT for its good service, and to Kiva lenders for supporting her loan.
Basoma Fatumah is a tailor with a business of making ladies’ wear, children and men’s clothes of all kinds. She employs one person who uses the excess sewing machine that she has to help her meet her customers’ demands on time. She is also a farmer with food both for sale and home consumption. She has a hope of having so many machines so that she could have a school of tailoring. Most of the materials she sews are from her shop hence increasing her income, all thanks to the loans and her hard work.
Rahimova Orzugul is and has been a farmer since 2001 and through experience, she has been successful. Thanks to the loan from Kiva she has been able to include many crops because the funds help her to employ labor for high quality yields and quick services. Orzugul does not have enough words to express her heart felt gratitude to her lenders through Kiva but only God to bless you all. At least she is able to develop her businesses slowly but surely.
Greetings from Tanzania! Thank you for supporting Mtetwa and the subgroup B of Serena group. I am happy to report she is doing extremely well. With the loan she received,she managed to open a beauty saloon and purchased salon equipments. As a result, her monthly profit rose to $294! Mtetwa uses the additional profits to improve on the salon. Mtetwa and the subgroup B Serena group are very grateful for the loan and are thankful to every one who has supported them.
To see other loans being fundraised by Tujijenge Tanzania, please click on the following link: http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=87&status=fundRaising&sortBy=New+to+Old&_tpg=fb
We are pleased to inform you that Pauline and her fellow entrepreneurs at the Sante Se Riches group in Trou-du-Nord have successfully completed the repayments for this Kiva loan. In fact they are currently repaying another loan they received through Esperanza and that was funded through Kiva, just like this one. Here is the link, they are almost done!
Pauline has continued to sell fish in her area. Her business has continued to provide better for her and her three children, and her business profits have proven enough for both her family care and for her loan repayments.
Pauline and her friends express their gratitude for your support of their initiatives to generate income and make a better life for themselves and their families. They also thank all Kiva lenders for their support! Stay tuned for more news on Pauline and her friends.
My name is Boris Mordkovich and I'm a volunteer from New York who has spent the last two months working at a Kiva field partner in Tajikistan: MLO HUMO & Partners. Kiva has been working with HUMO for over a year in order to reach borrowers in Tajikistan. Through this critical partnership, lenders like you can lend funds directly to entrepreneurs in this region to help them improve their businesses and their standard of living.
The Borrowers
Kiva lenders have supported more than 5,600 borrowers in Tajikistan, more than 1,500 of whom have received assistance from HUMO. For many of them, starting their own business is the only way to support themselves and their families. Job opportunities are scarce, and even if people do find full-time work, their salaries are usually not enough to cover living expenses. For example, a teacher in Tajikistan makes about 280 Somoni (about $75) per month, while it costs at least $300 to 500 per month to feed and support a family in the city.
If you'd like to view some of their stories, I invite you to visit the “Stories of Five Micro-Finance Borrowers”:
Due to a lack of developed infrastructure and industries, the country's economy has been supported primarily by remittances sent by migrant Tajik workers, who are based primarily in Russia. However, as the world's economic crisis worsens, many of these migrant workers are now unable to find work abroad, just as the situation is getting more dire in Tajikistan itself.
Access to micro-credit is becoming more important than ever in order for people to sustain their businesses and themselves during these difficult economic times. Many of the bigger banks have stopped their lending activity altogether or have significantly increased their rates. Smaller micro-finance institutions, such as HUMO and others, remain one of the few reasonable options for the low-income population.
If you want to find out more about the impact of the economic crisis in Tajikistan, visit:
Over the two months I've spent at HUMO, I've wound up explaining how Kiva works to dozens of people. Most of them were aware of the organization, but not everybody fully understood how it worked. When they learned about the hundreds of lenders that were behind all of these loans, they were often amazed and impressed by people’s generosity and their desire to help. On behalf of Kiva, HUMO, and its borrowers, we thank you for supporting our work.
To see current fundraising loans from HUMO on Kiva.org, please check:
If you have any follow-up questions or comments, feel free to contact me at boris.mordkovich@fellows.kiva.org and I'd be more than happy to try to address your concerns.
Karim is very happy about the loan received from Kiva. He indicates that his business is growing and he is able to reach more clients due to the quality of his merchandise. Karim has been very pleased so far with his investment and the effects it has had on the family budget. He is impressed with the way Kiva and its lenders loan money to people like him. They do not know him and still they were able to loan him the money he needed. Karim is very thankful for the opportunity to have taken this loan and thanks you for your support and encouragement!
Muminova Manzurat has successfully repaid her 9-month loan in the size of $600 US Dollars. Manzurat applied for the loan in order to purchase different kinds of macaroni for selling. Considering that the funds were received by the entrepreneur in a proper time, Manzurat generated the good incomes and used her market advantage. Manzurat thanks all those who supported her allowing developing of her business.
Mabel es casada, tiene 3 hijos de los cuales 2 ya trabajan y una pequeña que esta en el jardín, Mabel viaja a la ciudad de Lima en donde vende tuna, papa ambos negocios son estaciónales y depende de la cosecha, además vende repuestos que adquiere en la ciudad de Lima, sus ventas realiza en el taller de su esposo y también reparte por mayor a otras tiendas, en los últimos meses producto de sus ganancias construyo el segundo piso de su casa. Mabel obtuvo un préstamo de 3000 soles dinero que fue invertido en la compra de aceite para carro.
Aomalu has an orange plantation which covers three quarters of the land. Her previous loan had been used to purchase chemicals and equipments to help in the cleaning and fencing of the plantation to protect it from roaming pigs. Her business is going well known by the status of her earnings that is efficient enough to cover her family expenses and support her kid’s school needs. And Aomalu thanks the program for the great financial support being made available to her.
Tuvalu is very talented in baking where many people know her through her bakery business. Her baked goods are delivered around different shops and around the village but most of her clients personally come to her to place orders during special occasions like birthdays, weddings and other special events. Her previous loan had been used to build two made-ovens for her baking because she was using her old one she had before, and the rest of the loan had been used to pay up her kids school fees at school. Tuvalu is very greatful for the assistance being lent out to her and she is very happy for she is now earning a good profit from her business to cater for her different needs.
Silvia Pérez Vázquez, received a housing improvement loan from Kiva earlier this year – the loan is currently being paid back. The loan has helped to speed up the process of improving the family’s house, located in the Francisco Villa neighborhood of Nuevo Laredo. The borrower sends thanks to Kiva lenders for supporting this home improvement project!
Desafortunadamente tuvo problemas de salud con uno de sus hijos, lo cual le llevó a utilizar el préstamo para estos gastos, ella y su esposo están haciendo lo posible para poder llevar acabo este proyecto y no quitarán su fuerza de voluntad hasta lograrlo, piden una disculpa por no haber logrado el objetivo al cual se contempló el apoyo.
Si Aurora Tomogsoc naningkamot sa pag atiman sa iyang tindahan. Mao ni iya gihatagan ug igo nga pagtagad nga makahatag niya panginabuhian. Daghang salamat sa mga KIVA Lenders for making the store a reality.
She is a mother of three children and she has a responsible husband thats inspire her to go her business in progress.Hence,she has a additional business aside from fishing that we could shellcraft making.Otherwise,Kiva makes her more courageable in her business.
Ahmad has been working with Al Majmoua for few years, Lebanese Association for Development. Ahmad owns a grocery shop. His last loan is already finished. He used the capital from his last loan, which was raised by Kiva lenders such as you, and disbursed by Al Majmoua, for a variety of purposes. Some of the money helped to purchase merchandise for his shop and some was used to pay the rent of the shop. Ahmad explained to us that his previous loans from Al Majmoua have allowed him to continually improve his shop. Ahmad is very satisfied with his Kiva-Al Majmoua loan, and he is grateful for the opportunity this access to microfinance has provided him.
Lesina Ufau is 45 years old and has 5 children. She is a member of Sauano Fagaloa center which is located in Eastern Upolu.The loan officer who is in charge of her center says Lesina is a very good member. She repays her loan on time, always attends her weekly meetings, and is enthusiastic about expanding her business. She has used her loans from SPBD to purchase equipments for her business. She says her business is doing well. On good days she makes 550 Tala a day (1Tala=0.4USD) and on bad days she makes 350 Tala a day. She also says that the Kiva loans and SPBD loans are not only helping her business grow, but also helping her pay her children’s school fees, feed her family better, and improve her housing. She is an active member of Sauano Centre, she is also a good member. Lesina repays her loan on time and never missed out the weekly meeting. She thanked the SPBD and KIVA for making her business grow.
note: Bernard is currently paying back a loan of 25,000 KSH that is his third in a series of three loans that total the posted loan amount of 700 USD. K-MET is now aware that it is Kiva policy to post each loan individually and will be adhering to this policy in the future.
Bernard Arweya works as a tailor in Nyalenda, a slum area of Kisumu, Kenya. He rents a small space on the concrete in front of a small strip of buildings and pays a small additional fee in order to store his table, chair, sewing machine and materials in one of the rooms. Each day at 8:30am, except for Sundays, Bernard sets up his sewing machine on a small wooden table. Behind the table he hangs a display of different materials that customers can choose from. Customers will sometimes buy the material elsewhere, but hire Bernard to make the clothing. If Bernard does not have the material the client wants, he will often find it for them and then commence the job. Bernard sews school uniforms, children’s clothes and men’s suits. The competition in the area is stiff, with many other tailors also working in Nyalenda. Bernard became a tailor in 1989, after attending a training school. His wife and six children live on his homestead in Kisii, about two hours away from Kisumu. It is better for Bernard to be a tailor in Kisumu, even though there is a lot of competion, and he sends money home often. Bernard makes all of his family’s clothes – dresses for his wife and two daughters and shirts and pants for himself and the boys. The tailoring business had been going well until the post-election violence of early spring affected Kisumu, and all of Kenya. Bernard’s sewing machine and materials were stolen and he, like many others, was forced to leave Kisumu, as he is not a Luo or originally from the area. Bernard joined his family in Kisii for 3 months but made the decision to return when events had calmed. Many of his customers left and have yet to return, if they ever will, so business has been slow. Bernard has a good-natured demeanor and an easy humor, quick to smile. He speaks quickly and with a deep laugh. He talks with surprising ease about how the post-election violence has badly affected his business. He seems to shrug it off with a smile and tells me that things are slowly building back up. With a loan from K-MET, Bernard was able to purchase a new sewing machine for 16,000 Schillings, new materials from a wholesaler in town, and use the remainder to pay for school fees for two of his children (all of the children are currently in school). He says that now, because of the loan, he is able to have the items he needs to work and continues to make a living. He thinks sometimes of expanding the business, he explains to me, and of hiring another person and getting another sewing machine. He talks of taking out another, larger, loan with K-MET in the future. Bernard looks away from me for a few moments and then turns back, saying that if the government would be steady, business would do well, but when the political climate is unsteady, businesses cannot thrive. I nod, realizing how familiar Bernard has become with this issue and how much the “unsteadiness” of last February has affected his life. As we say goodbye, I am struck anew by his great smile and relaxed laugh, his firm handshake and the way he waves away my asante sanas (thank yous).
You may have noticed that repayments on this loan have not been coming in for quite some time. After detailed investigation by Kiva representatives in Ecuador, our team has determined that further repayments on your loan are highly unlikely. Therefore, this loan is now considered to be in default. To learn more, please visit:
http://www.kiva.org/about/aboutPartner?id=7
Although your loan was not repaid in full in this case, we hope you realize that over 95% of loans have been repaid in full to date on Kiva. We hope you'll give lending to developing world entrepreneurs another chance in the future.
Thank you,
Michelle Kreger
Kiva Staff
Microfinance Partnerships Manager
Latin America and the Caribbean
Peter sells building materials.He has been in this business for long.With his kiva loan he purchased more materials to sell.He is happy because business is moving well for him and his profits has also increased.He says thank you to all his kiva lenders.
Osborn Ugele sells electronics in Uromi, Edo State, Nigeria. Osborn sells both new and second hand electronics. The demands for his electronics are high. He used his last kiva loan to purchase more electronics to sell. He has been in this business for long. He says thank you to all kiva lenders for their financial support and LAPO MICROFINANCE for their business training.
Kang Sophy has used her loan to purchase more empty bottles and cans from villagers, which she then resells to a recycling company. She has already seen an increase in her income since she can now purchase more recyclables.
Adolfo purchased the motor and made repairs on his minibus The loan is 6% re paid and he says he and his family is fine. The mini bus is the only source of income he has so the new motor was vital for him.
Update by Zack Turner, Kiva Fellow with OI-Wedco in Kisumu, Kenya:
Benson spoke with me after his groups meeting at OI-Wedco’s branch office in Muhoroni. Unfortunately, Henry Ogola was not available to interview so Benton volunteered.
He runs a shop in Muhoroni town, which he has operated for nearly twenty five years. The main items he sells are sugar, bread, sodas, household items, and cooking fat. He worked at the sugar factory in town until he was coupled his savings with a micro-loan to start his business. On average he profits 6500 shillings per week ($100).
Benson tells me that his business suffered during the violent months of January and February, after the presidential election in Kenya. During this time someone looted his shop, because of the scarcity of food. Business was just starting to get good again when an outbreak of cholera in the town occurred after heavy rains flooded most of the latrines.
He tells me that Henry’s tailoring show is “not so bad”. Henry has been especially busy recently with orders for uniforms for the beginning of the school year.
** Special Notes:
This loan was posted mid-cycle on Kiva for extraordinary reasons. After peace and stability was restored, Opportunity International-Wedco chose to reschedule the loans of groups impacted by the post-election crisis. Kiva offered to help by posting the groups that were rescheduled, thus this extended update.
A self-help group is a legal community of people that band together to provide collateral. In a group loan, each member of the group receives an individual loan but is part of a group of individuals bound by a 'group guarantee'. Under this arrangement, each member of the group supports one another and is responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members if someone is delinquent or defaults. For the Kiva posting, we select one member to represent the group with their story and business.
For more regarding the post-election crisis please start here:
I’m excited to be writing you as the Kiva Fellow in Benin City, Nigeria. Over the next 3 months I will be witnessing firsthand the impact and realities of microfinance while working with Kiva’s Field Partner, Lift Above Poverty Organization (LAPO). As you may know, all entrepreneur profiles on Kiva's website are posted by local Field Partners (microfinance institutions), which are organizations that lend to the poor for poverty alleviation. The role of a Field Partner is to screen each entrepreneur, upload his/her loan request on the Kiva website, disburse the loan, and collect loan repayments.
In my role, I will be visiting many Kiva entrepreneurs and businesses and training LAPO staff in writing updates for Kiva lenders. As a result, many of you will receive an update on an entrepreneur who received a loan contribution from you. Unfortunately, due to the logistical and administrative constraints, reaching every entrepreneur for an update is not possible, even with the team of 8 people at LAPO who are dedicated to providing Kiva with photos and other content. Whether or not we provide an update on an entrepreneur to whom you loaned, I hope that you will enjoy the story of one Kiva borrower in Benin City that, to me, illustrates the “togetherness” and “unity” that is the inspiration for Kiva’s Swahili name. It is the story of Cookey Nosayana.
Cookey owns a 24-hour Internet café and computer training center. He took a Kiva loan to purchase a more efficient generator that has cut his fuel costs by more than half. It supplies his business with power despite the frequent and extended power outages that are common in Nigeria (in order to stay open for business, he must run a generator an average of 15 hours every day).
Cookey is unique among LAPO (and likely Kiva) clients – he has access to the Internet. He is one of the few clients has been able to explore Kiva.org and experience the partnership that lenders have access to every time they sign on to their portfolio page. When I arrived to write his update, he was holding a printout of his borrower page. As a lender myself, I was excited to hear his perspective. He was gracious enough to answer my myriad of questions.
Cookey first found his profile on Kiva.org by accident. He was Googling “Cookey Nosayana” to see if he could find the meaning of his name. Up came Kiva.org. First he read what had been written in his business description. It was basic, but he was grateful that it had helped him get the capital to purchase a new generator. Then he started clicking around. He viewed his lenders – from the United States, Canada and the UK. They were working people, just like him. I asked him what he thought. Was he surprised that someone would lend him money from across the globe? He was grateful, but not surprised.
“We live in a humanitarian world,” he said. “It’s just like the head of LAPO [Godwin Ehigiamusoe],” Cookey continued. “When he first started LAPO people laughed. Now everyone is running to him for loans. It’s because it is a good idea.” Note: LAPO was started in 1987 when microfinance was still in its infancy and primarily limited to Asia. Those who believed in microfinance were still unsure about it’s promise in Nigeria. Godwin Ehigiamusoe blocked out the negativity, moved forward as he says, “with his heart and his head.” Today LAPO has 137 branches throughout Southern Nigeria and Sierra Leone, provides over $36,126,579 in loans each year and served 135,975 clients in 2007.
Now with LAPO partnering with Kiva, Cookey says that he would love to continue being part of this international web-based financial community. He has expansion plans for his business and will need additional capital to double the number of computers he has connected to the web. He hopes that LAPO will select him as a Kiva client a second time (His first Kiva loan will be paid off in 4 months so keep an eye out for him on the LAPO client lending page).
“Kiva is worthwhile,” says Cookey, “and will continue to be if both sides keep up their part.” As he explored the site, he browsed the businesses of his fellow borrowers from Indonesia to Azerbaijan and appreciated the widespread impact Kiva lenders were having. He believes that it is critical that Kiva entrepreneurs keep making payments and showing improvement and that lenders keep reinvesting their Kiva credit into new businesses as they are repaid. From Kiva, LAPO and its family of borrowers, we thank you for your continued support of our work. To see all currently fundraising loans from LAPO on Kiva.org, please click here:
Grace James and her subgroup have completed their loan term and have successfully paid back the loan and her second hand shoes business is doing very well. With the loan she purchased a good stock of second shoes. Because of these purchases her monthly profit has increased from $429 to $600! Grace is very happy about this increase and it will help her cater for her family needs and education
She and her group appreciate the opportunity for the loan and thank you for your support and encouragement
The home Sith Sarorn and her family is half an hour down dusty, in the countryside outside of Siem Reap. We were greeting warmly by her husband and her when we arrived, and were invited to sit down on a covered wooden platform outside of their house. She took out a loan of $1000 in order to purchase cow, seed and a motorbike to expand farming venture, but the money just helped purchase only a motorbike for one of her son for commute to work. The motorbike help reduce the expanse that her son always spend on a motor-taxi. She said her business selling Khmer cake is doing well and she has no problems paying a loan back to Credit MFI. In the future, she will need another loan to open a grocery stall. Finally, she and her husband would like to say thanks to all lenders for interest helping Cambodian entrepreneurs like her family.
Dezilanta Bakazi is the chairperson of Muzira Twimukye group. She sells used clothes in daily markets as a way of moving from one busy location to another mostly taxi parks and to daily markets around her home area. She has been able to buy used clothing in bales with mostly ladies and children’s wear and business is good. She goes to Kampala once a week if at all need arises for more stock. The good thing with buying in bales is that, every cloth is priced differently depending on the quality. From one bale, on average Dezilanta makes a profit of $15 and it would be higher if not for the very high transport costs. She plans to increase her profits by stocking more good quality clothes so that she could cut her frequent movements to Kampala. She is seriously working towards this for a better life of her family and business growth.
Here is a message written by Robert Edgar, MIFEX Co-Founder and Director, on your loan:
As Mifex's Co-Founder and Director of Operations, I want to provide you with an update on your loan managed by Mifex. As you may know, all entrepreneur profiles on Kiva's website are posted by local Field Partners, like Mifex, which are organizations that lend to the poor for poverty alleviation. The role of a Field Partner is to screen each entrepreneur, upload his/her loan request on the Kiva website, disburse the loan, and collect loan repayments.
Lately, we have encountered substantial obstacles that may affect the repayment performance of Mifex and its entrepreneurs on the Kiva website. Here is an update from our institution that I hope helps clarify what some of the issues we are dealing with are. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to visit the Mifex website: http://www.mifex.org/, or email us at info@mifex.org.
In the microfinance industry Mifex is a very young organization. We were amongst the first institutions to use Kiva for financing and we have heavily relied on Kiva funds to start our organization. Although Kiva and the great lenders that support the site have helped our institution form a strong base for growth, we have recently encountered substantial obstacles.
A shortage of capital, combined with escalating default rates, has put a heavy strain on our operation. Many of our clients are also having a very difficult time making their repayments due to the persistent rains during the first half of the year. These factors have caused Mifex to accumulate a debt to Kiva lenders that we cannot pay without putting in danger the sustainability of our organization.
As a result, Mifex and Kiva have agreed to put a temporary pause on all new fundraising on the site until our organization regains its stability. We will continue to make collections on our Kiva loans during this time. However, due to the challenges we face, some of the funds you are expecting as a repayment may be delayed or defaulted if we are not able to collect them within 6 months of the end of their respective loan terms, as Kiva's policy states.
Over the next several months we will devote 100% of our efforts to resolving this situation so we can continue our relationship with Kiva. We will continue to collect the debt from our clients who have defaulted as well as explore other sources of financing. Meanwhile, we respectfully ask for your patience as we diligently work towards these goals.
Greetings from Imishli, Azerbaijan! We recently visited the business of Mahmmadali Huseynov to learn how his Kiva loan was used. Mahammadali used the loan as planned to purchase livestock. He and his family (wife and son pictured) raise both cows and sheep. They are particularly fortunate to own a very productive milk cow that is producing about 10 litres of milk per day! The family plans on keeping this cow for a long time! Additionally, the conditions for keeping their animals have improved dramatically with the completion of a new shed for the cattle.
Hellen paid the loan back successfully and her business is going on well. With the loan, she bought a dryer for about $167 and salon equipments for about $58 As a result; her profit have increased by about $25 a month! She is very excited about this increase and how it will benefit her home in the future. She and her group are thankful for the opportunity of taking this loan and for your support and encouragement
As you are likely aware, Kiva’s field partner, Opportunity International-WEDCO, is located in western Kenya with headquarters in Kenya’s third largest city, Kisumu. During the recent political violence, particularly acute in western Kenya and the Rift Valley, many of Opportunity-WEDCO’s members were deeply affected including destroyed businesses and damaged equipment.
During the months of January and February, repayment was interrupted for members in this lending group. Because of this, Opportunity-WEDCO has extended this loan term by 4 weeks repayments to Kiva will be delayed relative to the original monthly schedule. Opportunity-WEDCO hopes to post a more thorough update on this business soon and the repayment schedule going forward as internet access and time allow.
We thank you for lending to this group and for your patience as group members and Opportunity International-WEDCO recover.
Sincerely,
Ben Elberger
Microfinance Partnerships Manager, East and Southern Africa
www.kiva.org
Loans that change lives
As a recent Kiva blog post (http://www.kiva.org/about/inside) discussed, the situation unfolding in Kenya has disrupted the day-to-day operations of many of Kiva’s microfinance partners, like Ebony Foundation.
James Maina, Director of Ebony Foundation (EbF) (http://www.kiva.org/about/aboutPartner?id=25), has provided the update below for you. Due to the exceptional circumstances (including lack of reliable internet) where James is working in Kenya right now, Kiva is posting this update on his behalf.
Thank you,
Kiva Team
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Dear Kiva Lenders,
I wish to thank you for your continued concern and support during this very difficult moment in Kenya’s history. We have been a peaceful Country in a generally troubled region and people sort of took the peace for granted.
The country is now battered almost to a pulp and blood spilt with vengeance, senseless killings and wanton destruction. Markets, food stores and shops have been looted. Hospitals are dysfunctional and health centers incapacitated by riots and barricades. The violence, death and destruction witnessed in the Country for the last couple weeks has jolted the Nation into conscience and every body is now craving normalcy.
While peace is slowly returning to all affected parts of the Country, the impact of the riots has been devastating. Hundreds of people have been killed turning thousands of innocent children into helpless orphans and over one million people have been displaced, becoming internal refugees over night.
The impact of the riots is most felt in the micro and small business sector. Over 1 million small businesses were looted and or burnt down destroying the only source of income to millions of Kenyans. Most of the fighting and destruction occurred in slum areas in Nairobi, Mombasa, Nakuru and Kericho in Rift Valley. These regions are home to over 70% of Ebony Foundation’s clients and as you can imagine almost all of our clients in these regions have been affected by the riots. Only one region- (Mount Kenya) which is home to about 20% of EbF’s clients was spared the violence. The economy in this safe region is now getting stretched as the residents have to now house the displaced population.
We have recently completed auditing the riot’s impact on our clients and as of yesterday about 4,900 of our clients had been badly affected by the riots:
-- About 1,532 of our clients were displaced and both their homes and business premises burnt down. This population is currently housed in church compounds and police stations.
-- Another 2,479 clients had their business premises burnt down or looted leaving them with no source of income at all.
-- 833 clients had their homes looted or burnt down and about 56 clients are missing and feared dead or critically injured.
We arrived at these figures through a survey being administered at holding grounds, police stations, and through reliable reports from groups and community leaders. Our staff and local group officials have also been committed to conducting field assessments. I am sending a photo today which you may share with the lenders. The biggest tasks at the moment are to feed and house the displaced people, and to finance the reconstruction of the small businesses that were affected in order to enable the people to reclaim their source of income. In addition, Ebony Foundation is now helping other MFI’s audit their clients.
Eb-F has formed the following committees to address the above issues:
-- A humanitarian committee that is working with the International Red Cross to provide food, shelter and medical care to the victims.
-- A business reconstruction committee that is working with the affected clients to re finance and rebuild the small businesses that were looted and/or burnt down.
-- A compliance committee that is studying the legal and contractual aspects of the affected loans to arrive at the best policy action.
Thus, we ask for your continued patience as many loan repayments will be late, and it even may be impossible for some loans to be repaid in full at all. Thank you for your patience as we work hard to address all of these difficult issues, to serve our borrowers and help them recover, and to repay loans as quickly and as much as is possible in the coming months.
Sincerely,
James Maina
Executive Director
Ebony Foundation
Kenya
Amelia runs a successful business from her home in the Luis Cabral neighbourhood of Maputo – just outside of the main city. I had passed the area many times before on my way to the large bus stop located only a few blocks away, but this was my first time here in the busy, urban suburb located along the main road. Her daughter met the loan officer and me at the stop and led the way to their home. Although it was getting dark and already close to dinner time, Amelia kindly invited us inside so I could learn a little more about her business and loan! A hot day (still, even this late in the evening), Amelia works right on her patio and there is actually a customer still here now trying on a new blouse Amelia has just completed for her! We wait a moment as she carefully marks a small adjustment and I´m very impressed with her work (it´s a beautiful top with intricate embroidery lining the sleeves).
Amelia makes a wide variety of clothing for her clients and can complete any request. From wedding clothing (she proudly displays gorgeous pictures of examples on her wall) to trendy, modern tops to traditional outfits made from capulanas, Amelia prides herself in being able to make whatever you desire. She also often fields requests for various types of bedding and linens and makes these products as well. The price of the goods she makes completely depends on the materials needed and the size of the project though a complete outfit for a child, for example, can cost between 70 to 100 Meticias. She fields about 10 orders each week and prides herself on the high quality of her work – never rushing through her orders, but still able to get them done at their promised time!
Amelia purchases materials for her goods twice a month form stores in Maputo and explains that because inventory prices are so high, she has been using her loan specifically for this purpose. In particular, materials for bedding and linens tend to be very expensive and she works hard to pay for these goods while at the same time keeping her prices reasonable for her customers. Thus, her current loan and her two previous loans have been essential – though she laments that rather than focusing on growth at the moment, she is more concerned with maintaining her current business when faced with such high raw material costs. She also tells me that despite this minor problem, she has never missed or made a late payment on her loan and fully intends to keep it that way!
Amelia is 54 years old and currently separated from her husband. She has two, not three as previously stated, children, a son who is 21 and a daughter who is 17. They both attend school in the city and her daughter has been learning her trade – helping her with her larger orders. Amelia has been a seamstress and designer for 31 years! She explains that it´s what she has loved doing all her life, and I can see why – she´s quite talented! In fact, she´s modelling one of her own creations now (a dress made from a traditional capulana) and I can´t help but ask her if she has any ready for purchase now (sadly, no). While her previous loans have helped her maintain this particular business, she hopes to use the next specifically on her dream of finishing her home. While her profits have allowed her to purchase luxuries such as a refrigerator, she dreams of adding a conventional bathroom for her family as well as her customers to use. There has been a strong influx of customers because of the end of the year (when many people make a bulk of their clothing purchases), so she hopes to begin construction early next year when she has more saved and more time. Amelia thanks everyone at Kiva for her loan!
Manzura is repaying her loan in time without any delay.Her working capital is going well and she receives stabile profit every week.Now she has wide assortment of goods and she wishes to get max porfit from coming holiday trade.Presently among her goods mayonnaise "Calve","Moya semya" and "Provanasale"have good demand and also other food products for preparing salads have fast turnover.Yesterday she received the new batch of food product and she hopes to sell them in short time.
Manzura also wants to congratulate all lenders and team of Kiva program with coming New Year holiday and wishes them success in their life.
Amelia esta muy feliz de saber que ahora cuenta con mas bienes y servicios para atender a los clientes, ella ahora esta mas segura por que cuenta con mas bienes y servicios para generar ingresos a su negocio y mas bienes y servicios a la comunidad, la familia espera tener mejores días para ellos.
Luis esta muy feliz de saber que cuenta con el apoyo de la comunidad internacional y ahora ella puede seguir con los planes de desarrollo para la comunidad, la familia esta contenta de saber que ahora tiene mas oportunidades de desarrollo para generar ingresos para el presupuesto del hogar. Les manda saludos a todos los que hacen este programa.
Luis esta muy contento de saber que ahora cuenta con mas bienes y servicios para la comunidad y poder atender a la familia con mejoras en su presupuesto del hogar ahora puede atender a la las necesidades de financiamiento del negocio y generar mas bienes y servicios para la comunidad, saludos a todos los que hacen este programa en especial a Kiva.
Franklin esta muy feliz de saber que cuenta con este crédito para atender a la comunidad con mas bienes y servicios ahora ella esta muy feliz de saber que tiene esta oportunidad de crecer y poder atender son mas servicios y a la familia con mas presupuesto para atender la salud y educacion.
Mirasol esta contenta de saber que ahora cuenta con mas oportunidad de crecer y atender a la micro-empresa ahora la familia espera mas presupuesto y generación de ingresos por medio de este negocio, la comunidad tendrá mas oportunidades de crecimiento en su sector y mas bienes y servicios atendidos por el negocio de Mirasol.
Sonia esta muy feliz de saber que ahora cuenta con mas oportunidad de tener este crédito para poder seguir atendiendo a la comunidad solidaria internacional ahora ella pertenecen a la red de microfianzas del mundo y espera seguir con el apoya y de esta forma crecer junto a la comunidad y la familia tiene mas oportunidades de crecimiento.
We just got word from Teresa's loan officer, and they just had a meeting today! Her loan officer tells us that Teresa has done an incredible job of making all of her loan payments on time, attending all meetings, and even putting additional money towards her savings(they are required to put a certain amount into savings with each payment).
Additionally, Teresa says that business is great at her Colmado. Her sales have increased since her loan, and her community members seem to be more loyal and satisfied!
Stay tuned for more information, and thank you for your ongoing support!
When I arrived today at Anastancia´s beautiful home located in the Albazine area of Maputo with her loan officer this morning, she warmly greeted us at the gate and chided the officer for not coming sooner and visiting more often. She’s quick to offer us coffee and tea, and we sit on her front porch so I can learn a little more about her business and how her loan is progressing.
I have to start off by saying that I have no idea how Anastancia finds enough time in the day. First, she runs a business making a variety of clothing, embroidered products such as towels, linens, and shirts, as well as other items by special request. She has a long list of clients that range from local neighbours to large companies who hire her services, and they come calling from all across Mozambique! She proudly shows me a number of her products, ranging from pot holders to uniforms, and I´m truly impressed by her talent and she explains that for a particular tablecloth she has just finished, she spent as long as 65 minutes carefully crafting each of the 8 embroidered decals. She is using her current loan to stock up on the necessary supplies to fulfil all her orders, and she sends her products off for delivery every two weeks.
Yet, not only does Anastancia run her successful business (something she has been doing since 1994) but she is also a teacher at a primary school in Maputo and is also taking classes at the local university at night! She’s taking courses to augment her resume so she can begin teaching secondary school, and she will complete all her credits this year. Anastancia is 48 years old and her husband is a disabled war veteran. They have five children (not six as reported in the business description) though they also take care of a grandson who lives with them at home. She clearly works incredibly hard, teaching classes in the morning, working on her business in the afternoons, and attending classes at night, but what I think impressed me most about her was her dream for the future. Her most sought after dream, she tells me, is to open her own small primary school for the local children of Albazine. She tells me how important education is to her, and what she wants most is to give back to the community by teaching the local children and aiding in their development. She already has a site picked out and a core curriculum prepared, and she hopes that with her next loan, she can make this dream a reality.
She explains that FDM has changed her life – she’s received 15 loans in the past! They’ve helped her grow her business from a time where she sewed everything by hand, to being able to fulfil all the bulk orders from the well-known clientele she has now with computerized machines. She’s experienced a large amount of success and is currently constructing a large new house, and while she expects her business to continue growing, now she is focused on fulfilling her dream of building a school. I was so amazed by the dedication and hard work demonstrated by Anastancia, and I feel incredibly lucky to have met her today.
Sergio and his family are putting in long hours to fulfill all of their Christmas orders. In addition to the ceramic piggy banks, they also produce ceramic figurines for nativity scenes very popular in Peru. The production of these is what causes the Christmas season to be so crucial and busy. Sergio used this loan to purchase clay and paint. He had hoped to purchase a clay mixer, but with the high demand before Christmas he had to purchase more materials instead. He hopes to invest in the clay mixer in January.
Sergio is still suffering from appendicitis, which he attributes to the long days he puts in. He begins working at 7:00 am and works until 2:00 am, in the crisp weather of Juliaca. His dedicated wife and family have truly demonstrated their love and respect for Sergio by taking control of the business and seeing that everything gets taken care of according to his high standards. This has allowed Sergio some time to rest and recuperate, and he is hoping for a full recovery.
Many businesses who produce figurines similar to Sergio’s sell them to a middle man who paints them. Sergio, however, takes great pride in creating every aspect of the figurines. He first mixes the clay and pours it into molds, which dry for a few days and are then ready to be fired. After firing, Sergio paints each intricate piece with care, and only after he is satisfied with the quality does he sell them. He has various sizes of figurines and piggy banks, and can sell the medium size for 140 Soles, about $45, per 1000. He has requests coming all the way from Bolivia for his work, and his goal is expand his client base throughout not only Peru but the neighboring countries as well.
Sergio’s family, although under a lot of stress and pressure due to Sergio’s illness, is clearly a loving and supportive family regardless of circumstance. Sergio’s five children, ages 17 to 1 ½, give him inspiration to get up each day and fight. His dream is to send each one to the university of their choice so they can study and become professionals and avoid the struggles he has had to endure.
Benigna is an inspiring entrepreneur, having overcome an abusive past to start a new life caring for her four children on her own. Benigna has two businesses: she constructs ceramic figurines for nativity scenes, and she also raises cows for milk and meat. At the moment Benigna is primarily occupied with her ceramics, because the months before Christmas the nativity scenes are in high demand. Beginning in January, this business slows down and she focuses on selling milk and meat for a few months before starting on the figurines again.
When we visited Benigna she and two of her children were busy working on their figurines, rushing to make as many as possible before Christmas. Benigna used her loan to purchase clay, which she then mixes in a large pit on her land. After mixing the clay, Benigna fills the molds and sets them in the sun to dry. After a few days, the figurines are ready to be fired in the kiln. Benigna says that she used to produce just typical nativity scene animals, such as sheep, cows, and donkeys, but she now has added lions, rabbits, deer, fox, chickens, ducks, and peacocks. She says this fun variety is very popular and people who have collections can add a new animal each year. Once Benigna has fired the figurines, she sells them to a middle man who paints them and then distributes them to markets all over Peru. Benigna sells them for 40 Soles, about $13, per 1000.
Benigna says that since receiving loans from her village bank, she has been able to invest in larger quantities of clay at a lower cost, therefore increasing her profits. She and her family are doing well. They live in their own home outside of Juliaca, and her oldest child is now studying to be a nurse. Her youngest three, ages 15, 12, and 2, are healthy and happy and love to help their mom out with the figurines and the cows. Benigna says with the increased profits from her business she can afford to feed her family regular and balanced meals, and can always afford medicine if someone becomes sick.
Benigna is very happy with the new life she’s created for herself and her children. This video is a collection of photographs taken at Benigna’s home, showing a bit of the process of making ceramic figurines.
Carolay is a gentle and kind person yet even as we sit to talk she can command the respect and attention of the workers that surround us. She invites us to a nectar, a local specialty drink made from fruit. Carolay walks us through the woodshop and brings us to the machines she is hoping to replace with future loans. This $500 loan was not enough to purchase a new machine, but she was able to purchase some smaller tools that were needed. Carolay has been with her village bank for one year, and if she continues to pay back her loans on time she will be able take out bigger loans that will allow her to purchase the cutting machine that they really need.
Carolay also has a small business selling clothes and shoes that she buys from Lima. She and her husband are both healthy and very much enjoying being parents to their two children, a 5 year old boy and a 1 ½ year old girl. They are very happy with their loan from Kiva, and have had no problems paying it back, ‘gracias a Dios’, she says. Her only complaint is that she would like a bigger loan in the future so they can purchase the cutting machine that is more efficient and produces a smoother and more exact cut. With this they could produce better quality wood and more of it. She patiently acknowledges that she must prove her ability to pay back without problem before receiving a bigger loan, and she is ready and determined to do just that.
Manzura successfully repaid her loan several days ago.Her business is going well.Due the loan from Kiva investors she could expand her assortment by including new kind of tea,which is in good demand among customers. She recieved nice profit from it.
Manzura very thankful to KIVA for their loan.
