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Showing 1-25 of 43 results
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Hello Spring: It’s Time to Celebrate
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 20 April 2012
Compiled by Kiyomi Beach | KF17 | Mexico Whether shaking off the chill of winter, welcoming the rainy season, or experiencing any other climate change, the spring can definitely be a time to celebrate.
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Agdam, Nagorno Karabakh.
Blog: Leave Me Here - 27 March 2012
A deserted city in a country recognized by no one. In the Caucasus over summer, I traveled far east to Nagorno Karabakh – a controversial little ‘country’, recognized by no-one. Armenian culture wrapped-up inside Azerbaijan’s borders. Issued a do-it-yourself Visa sticker on the boarder, and told to pay at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs once [...]
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Update From The Field: Finding Epiphanies, Sharing Wisdom + Standing Up to Sassy Nigerian Mamas
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 19 March 2012
Compiled by Chris Paci | KF16 & KF17 | Azerbaijan The 17th class of Kiva Fellows was turned loose into the field on January 27th, nearly two months ago – and how long ago it seems! By this point, our intrepid fellows are really starting to get the hang of their placements, forming routines, powering through their [...]
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Glitz and Glamour, Oil Wealth, and the Left-Behind of Baku
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 13 March 2012
Chris Paci | KF16 & KF17 | Azerbaijan We Kiva Fellows are a lucky bunch. Not only do we do truly consequential work in the field to turn Kiva’s social mission into reality – we also get to travel to places we never could have imagined, experience brilliant flashes of cross-cultural connection, and come back with stories our friends in the developed world can’t match.
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60 Tips from Kiva Fellows
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 30 December 2011
Compiled by Kate Bennett, KF16 Peru The sixteenth class of Kiva Fellows has all but left the field- but we're by no means done talking about our experiences. We've collectively spent 422 weeks in the field (just over 8 years!) and worked an estimated 16,650 hours at Kiva field partners around the world.
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Update from the Field: Adapting for Borrowers by Borrowers, Microinsurance +SKFL
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 28 November 2011
Compiled by Jim Burke, KF16, Nicaragua This week’s Fellows Blog focuses on adaptability: Adapting microinsurance to poor households in Indonesia, an MFI in Turkey adapts to the needs of women entrepreneurs, a multifaceted borrower in Nepal adapts to market pressures, and a Kiva Fellow adapts to changing expectations. In a continuation of The Stuff Kiva [...]
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Stuff Kiva Fellows Like #10-17
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 26 November 2011
Compiled by Jim Burke, KF16, Nicaragua We are Kiva Fellows. This is the stuff we like. Here is an insider (often critical, or satirical but always true!) view of what it means to be a Kiva Fellow and promote access to financial services around the world. From party crashing to bazaars to street food, these [...]
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The Most Expiring Loan: Part 1
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 30 November 2010
During training for the Kiva Fellowship I heard it mentioned numerous times that taxi drivers in Central Asia (but specifically in Azerbaijan) were the least demanded loans on Kiva. Their loans took the longest to get funded and expired most often. I was not surprised. After all, “Transportation”, being at the end of the Sector list on Kiva also competes with attention-grabbers like “Agriculture”, “Food”, “Housing” and “Retail” that precede it.
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Sacrifices and Microfinance
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 21 November 2010
On November 8th AqroInvest received new capital from an existing partnership with PlaNIS and a new partnership with Microenterprise. AqroInvest is one of Kiva’s two Field Partners in Azerbaijan. It is important to note that microfinance institutions, such as AqroInvest, depend on new partners and capital for growth. That Monday also happened to be my first day at AqroInvest. At the end of the day the entire staff and I celebrated with champagne and cake, making toasts to AqroInvest’s bright future, and my anticipated contribution to it.
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When Kiva Comes to Town
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 13 October 2010
by Nina Nelan, KF12 Azerbaijan One of the benefits of a Kiva Fellowship is the opportunity to peek behind the Kiva curtain. Like Oz, Kiva is not always as it seems, but it’s also not smoke and mirrors. (Continue reading for pictures of real live Kiva staff)
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It pays to be a teacher in Azerbaijan
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 30 September 2010
by Nina Nelan, KF12 Azerbaijan As Kiva wraps up back-to-school month, I feel compelled to provide this perspective on a country that should, and could, do better in the education of its youth. It's not hard to imagine that Azerbaijan, so resplendent with and dependent on its rich petrodollar economy, is setting itself up for failure when it pays so little attention to the quality and effectiveness of its educational programs. I hear stories of students who skip the majority of their classes, but secure passing grades with payments to their professors.
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Morals & Microfinance
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 17 August 2010
By Yelena Shuster, KF 11, Azerbaijan For some, traveling abroad is an exotic means of recreation, for others it is a learning experience.
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People do smile in Central Asia (and they dance, too)
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 14 August 2010
by Nina Nelan, KF12 Azerbaijan At first, I believed the myth that Central Asians do not smile because I couldn’t coax one out of a single pedestrian as I walked to work last week. But peoples’ street personas have nothing in common with who they are in offices and stores and restaurants and homes. Azerbaijanis are as warm and welcoming and smiley as anyone else in the world, and many have gone out of their way to help me adjust to life in Baku.
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Broken legs and hospitals in Azerbaijan
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 5 August 2010
By Yelena Shuster, KF 11, Azerbaijan Being a loan officer has its perilous moments. The scary Caucasian shepherd dogs that guard client’s homes and threaten to bite you and the difficult to find addresses of remote properties that one must search for in the unrelenting summer heat are obstacles. Then there are the numerous unforeseen hazards [...]
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Language & Culture in Azerbaijan
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 28 July 2010
By Yelena Shuster, KF 11, Azerbaijan I’d like to tell you about language in Azerbaijan especially since there have been some questions among Kiva lenders and translation volunteers as to why Komak is posting profiles in Russian using Latin letters instead of Cyrillic. You see, since the start of the 20th century the Azeri alphabet [...]
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Borrower verification in Azerbaijan: Meet a welder and a sheep farmer
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 10 July 2010
By Yelena Shuster, KF 11, Azerbaijan Last Tuesday I traveled from Baku to Fuzuli, a rural region in southwestern Azerbaijan, to meet two clients for borrower verification. The drive took us 4 hours (and 4 more to return), on a hot winding road that was paved but a few years ago. We drove past the [...]
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A video update from Azerbaijan
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 25 June 2010
Yelena Shuster is a Kiva Fellow serving with Komak Credit Union in Azerbaijan. Support Komak borrowers and join our team Friends of Komak! Filed under: Azerbaijan, blogsherpa, Eastern Europe & Central Asia (EECA), KF11 (Kiva Fellows 11th Class), Komak Credit Union Tagged: Kiva, Kiva Fellows, Komak credit union, yelena shuster
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Revelations by the director of Komak, Kiva field partner in Azerbaijan
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 11 June 2010
By Yelena Shuster, K11, Azerbaijan I’d like to tell you a little bit about Komak, the MFI (microfinance institution), where I am serving my Kiva fellowship. Komak, which means “help” in Azerbaijani, has offices in four regions: Baku, Absheron, Khachmas and Fizuli. The central office, where I have spent most of my time is located in Baku, the capital city. Here I work with five other people: Aydin, the director; Emin, information technology; Aliabbas, accounting; Elnur, bookkeeping; and Afitab, the Kiva coordinator.
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Day 444: Shurely Shum Mishtake
Blog: The Odyssey Expedition - 28 March 2010
Sat 20th Mar 2010; So I had nothing important to do today, it was a big public holiday in Baku and the main road through town were shut. I was looking forward to meeting up with Lala again later on and she had kindly offered me a couch at her brother’s flat. I [...]
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Day 443: My Lucky Underpants
Blog: The Odyssey Expedition - 28 March 2010
Fri 19th Mar 2010; I called Alex whom I met at the Irish Pub the other night and asked him if he could get in touch with the Uzbek embassy to see if there was any chance they might be open after 4pm today. To my shock and surprise, they were – they [...]
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Day 441: Politics & Modern History
Blog: The Odyssey Expedition - 28 March 2010
Wed 17th Mar 2010; So after yesterday’s half-crazied shenanigans, I found myself kicked off the bus at 6am in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE somewhere in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. The sky was firing sleet down and the wind chill was making my face freeze. There was a large concrete roundabout under a [...]
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Gettin' banned from Azerbaijan
Blog: Joe's Trippin' - 16 October 2009
I was deported from Mexico as a teenager. I was rejected for an Iranian visa 3 times. I was yelled at at the Ukrainian embassy for lying on my visa application. I can now add, I am banned from Azerbaijan!
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Ağdam
Blog: Joe's Trippin' - 15 October 2009
Ağdam. That's it. No corny blog titles. No tantalizing lead-ins. None of the, admittedly blunt, literary tools I may have in my limited arsenal. There's no need. The stark reality of the place more than speaks for itself.
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It's the little things that count
Blog: Joe's Trippin' - 9 October 2009
"You can't see the forest for the trees".
