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Showing 1-25 of 34 results
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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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Update from the Field: Expanding the Reach of Microfinance, Downsizing Development + Why We Kiva
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 31 October 2011
Compiled by Kathrin Gerner, KF16, Rwanda This week, you have no fewer than 14 new articles to choose from on the Kiva fellows blog: Let the fellows take you along on borrower visits across the world. Learn how Kiva field partners expand the reach of microfinance in Rwanda, fill the microfinance donut hole in Sierra Leone and improve social performance in Uganda. Find out what poverty is like in urban Tajikistan and rural Burkina Faso. Get inspired by one of the creative ways to bring renewable energy to the developing world in the form of a soccer ball.
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This Is Urban Poverty in Tajikistan
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 27 October 2011
By Chris Paci, KF16, Tajikistan “Be careful,” called Rahim from somewhere above my head. It was pitch black, and I felt for each stair with the toe of my shoe, slowly working my way up to where Rahim stood.
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Update from the Field: Loan Use, Agriculture Loans + Stuff Kiva Fellows Like
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 10 October 2011
Compiled by Kathrin Gerner, KF16, Rwanda This week on the Kiva fellows blog: Hop on a poda-poda or an okada to try out an adventurous way to get around Sierra Leone. Find out why loan use in Tajikistan is not as straightforward as you may think. Learn how the principle of "trust but verify" is applied in Georgia. Explore the clever efforts of an Ecuadorian Kiva partner to craft an agricultural loan product that is appropriate to farmers' needs. Welcome Kiva's new field partner, VisionFund Cambodia. Learn how village banking works in Ecuador.
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Loan Use: Not As Simple As You Might Think
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 3 October 2011
By Chris Paci, KF16, Tajikistan For many Kiva lenders, loan use – or what an entrepreneur plans to do with the funds he or she receives – is their most important consideration in deciding which entrepreneurs to support. On the Kiva website, it’s the single most prominent piece of information supplied about any featured entrepreneur.
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Beginning of a Tajikistan Journey
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 8 September 2011
By Chris Paci, KF16, Tajikistan ] Seeing a disheveled American with two huge suitcases standing by the side of the road, the taxi driver cuts the wheel, bombs horizontally across four (blessedly empty) lanes of traffic, and screeches to a stop in front of me. I open the passenger door and stuck my head inside.
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It’s Always Sunny in Tajikistan
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 10 December 2010
By Carrie Piesen, KF13, Tajikistan As part of the application process for the Kiva Fellowship, prospective fellows have to submit a ranking of countries where they hope to be sent for their placement. I'm sure Thailand, Samoa, and Costa Rica are lovely at this time of year, but there was little doubt in my mind as to which would be first on my list - what could be better than winter in Tajikistan?
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Starting Women-owned Businesses
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 27 October 2010
By Donald Hart, KF12, Tajikistan In 2008, IMON International, one of Kiva’s Field Partners in Tajikistan, conducted a community survey to identify potential opportunities to improve their product line. They found that quite a few women were interested in starting businesses, but so far had not been able to secure funding.
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Infrastructure War: How Trying to Fix a Problem Can Sometimes Become a Fight
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 21 October 2010
by Sam Kendall KF12 Tajikistan Currently there is a conflict brewing in Central Asia. The conflict is between a few different countries, and the cause is infrastructure. We've learned how infrastructure can raise costs of microfinance. Learn how it can raise costs of regular items, and the cost of nationalistic tendencies. (with videos)
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Cotton: Blessed Curse or Cursed Blessing
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 12 October 2010
by Sam Kendall KF12 Tajikistan (with pictures) I never thought my Kiva Fellowship would deal so much with cotton, without actually dealing with cotton. Today one thing Central Asia, especially Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, are known for is cotton, if they are known at all (All make top 10 list of cotton exporters). In Tajikistan it is everywhere, with pictures of cotton and even statues of cotton, the state symbol also has cotton on it. Cotton has driven much of the history of Central Asia and Tajikistan.
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“We Started Education.”
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 26 September 2010
by Sam Kendall KF 12, Tajikistan She looked at me very sternly, as if I had said something wrong, I knew that her students must be very obedient, because she was arguably the most intimidating teacher I had met in a post-soviet country, and I had met a lot of them. Rosa, as she wanted me to call her, even though it wasn’t her name, was a teacher in secondary school. “You must, um, understand Sam,” she started out as if trying to figure out how to word her sentences correctly in English, “Tajikistan today, is not all of the land of Tajiks.
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Happy Indepen-dance
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 14 September 2010
By Donald Hart, KF12, Tajikistan What do Hillary Clinton, Dmitry Medvedev, Islam Karimov, and 2 Kiva Fellows have in common? We all took time last week to wish Tajikistan a happy 19th anniversary of Independence. BONUS VIDEO: fireworks in front of a national monument and finding oneself in the center of an impromptu dance circle.
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A Sweet Recipe: How You Can Help an Economy
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 23 August 2010
by Sam Kendall KF 12 Tajikistan As this is food month on Kiva, I've decided to talk about how food relates to you, microfinance, and an entire countries economy. And as an added bonus, I give you a recipe based on fresh fruits and vegetables I've found in the market "Tajik Summer on Rice"
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What “Welcome to Tajikistan” really means
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 12 August 2010
By Donald Hart, KF12, Tajikistan Central Asia is famous for its hospitality. As I set out for my fellowship in Tajikistan with minimal (scratch that, zero) Russian or Tajik language ability – I had little else to rely on. My first week as a guest of Farrukh, one of the staff at Kiva’s Field Partner, Humo, has meant the following:
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Women in the workforce
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 3 July 2010
By Rosalind Piggot, KF10, Tajikistan “Apparently women entrepreneurs are able to raise funds more quickly than men in the world of Kiva,” wrote Peter Tashjian in his recent post. Peter confirmed what I had long suspected. Through lender pages and meetings with other lenders, it seemed that Kiva’s women entrepreneurs had more of a following [...]
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How useful is microfinance? (Migration v Microfinance)
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 29 June 2010
by Rosalind Piggot, KF10, Tajikistan Many Kiva Entrepreneurs I have met took up business to earn money to support their families. Some previous work didn’t pay enough. But in Tajikistan, micro-entrepreneurship has big competition when it comes to supporting the family. The rival is employment in Russia. As part of the Soviet Union for over [...]
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The many faces of the Tajik celebration
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 11 June 2010
By Rosalind Piggot, KF10, Tajikistan At 7 am the other morning, I was deafened by rhythmic Tajik dance tunes. After squirming around on my floor mattress to try to wake up fully, I opened the window. On the street 4 stories below, one young man was dressed in a suit holding flowers. Thirty odd neighbors [...]
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The end of farming as you know it
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 5 May 2010
By Rosalind Piggot, KF10, Tajikistan I always assumed that farmers requesting loans on Kiva were carrying on a traditional, family activity. Farming was a profession passed from father to son, from mother to daughter. The same practices were maintained for generations. I didn’t ask any more questions. I recently discovered that things are a little [...]
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Mavluda’s poem and why you should get decked out in shiny hats
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 2 May 2010
By Rosalind Piggot, KF10, Tajikistan As I sat down at the living room table, former Kiva Entrepreneur Mavluda Muhidinova hurried to show me her work. 5 plate-shaped pieces of black material were already on the table: work in progress. Mavluda had been hand-stitching traditional Tajik men’s hats, which are part of her business as a hat [...]
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Day 456: Bish Bash Bosh
Blog: The Odyssey Expedition - 1 May 2010
Thu 1st Apr: Sorry about the lack of blog updates this month – I’ve been hammering the website to make it all fabby and groovy for when the telly show starts in July and people pop in for a visit! So, where I was I? Oh yeah, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan!! So I was up and at ’em at [...]
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Coup in Kyrgyzstan, business as usual in Tajikistan?
Blog: Kiva Stories from the Field - 11 April 2010
From my neighbors’ flat in Khujand, in northern Tajikistan, we watched images of Kyrgyzstan’s coup on Russian satellite TV. One woman was sitting in her dark shop illuminated only by flashlight, weeping. The mannequins that had once displayed her goods were now nude. In the next shot, another woman swept glass from the steps of [...]
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Tajikistan Directory
Blog: Yoyo's travel blog - 15 September 2009
Ups: 1. GREAT trekking opportunities (Fan mountains, Pamir). 2. Warm hospitable people. especially Western Fan mountains. 3. Ice-cream (mirozhna in Russian) machine at every corner, especially in Khorog. 4. Dushanbe is great for finding Western food products. Downs: 1. Expensive, well relatively expensive, public transport. especially in the Pamir. 2. Very bad ifrastructure (roads, electricity), especially in the Pamir. 3. Scarce, [...]
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Pamir: Vrang-Sovetabad-Jawshangoz-HWY-Murgab
Blog: Yoyo's travel blog - 3 September 2009
After spending 2 weeks in Dushanbe, unable to get a visa to China, we had enough. Too much city-time, and too much food. Solution: head to the Pamirs. A 24 hour, 130 Somoni and a few broken bones later we got to Khorog, the Pamiri regional capital. Transport to Khorog leaves from the Badakhshanskaya Avstonitsiya, which is on [...]
