As a Kiva fellow, I got the opportunity to work with two organisations that have always fascinated me with the kind of work they do. The first being Kiva and the second, Juhudi Kilimo, a for-profit social enterprise and microfinance institution in Kenya.
I have lived in Kenya for several years, but prior to the Kiva Fellows Program, I have never travelled as extensively or interacted with local...
Stories tagged with Kenya
“You can see the self esteem and dignity that they gain,” Shadrack says. Shadrack is a program manager at Hand in Hand Eastern Africa, a Kiva field partner in Kenya. He is describing the impact that Hand in Hand's youth entrepreneurship clubs have on their student participants.
Outside of these entrepreneurship clubs, Hand in Hand Eastern Africa partners with clients who undergo an...
It’s been almost 1 year now since I joined Kiva as a partner impact fellow. It has been quite an exciting experience seeing what I have achieved throughout my project and how I've developed various skills in research and project management.
My first assignment involved working with 2 partners - 1 in Kenya and 1 in Rwanda - to identify opportunities in their product portfolio to introduce new products or tweak existing products for the impact evaluation project.
In Kenya, I worked closely with the head of marketing and business development to identify the...
Having lived and worked in Kenya for most of my life, I thought I knew a lot about the Microfinance space in the country. Well, all that changed when I joined VisionFund Kenya as a Kiva fellow a few months ago.
VisionFund Kenya (VFK) is a microfinance institution in Kenya founded in the year 2000 by World Vision Kenya. They have over 13 branches located in different parts of Kenya with a current customer base of over 16,000 borrowers, and their unique passion to better the lives of children is clearly stated in their vision statement: ''Our vision for every child, life in...
Urban Swaras is a pretty cool group. Like the hash, the group meets at pre-determined trails and follows arrows indicating where to go. However, there are not any of the... Continue Reading >>
SMEP, one of Kiva’s field partners in Kenya, offers affordable WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) loans to borrowers looking to purchase water tanks. SMEP’s affordable financing has several major benefits. Since the loans are almost always repaid, the money can be given out to other borrowers after one loan is completed. In addition, the water tanks can store enough water for an... Continue Reading >>