Meet Julia - a 46 year old woman with 4 children who lives in the Cupiche province of Peru. Growing up, she always loved eating her mother's cakes and helping her bake. When Julia worked as a domestic mother in the past, she started to practice her mother's craft by baking and reading cookbooks. As her passion for baking grew, she decided to study Bakery at a local institute, where she mastered her... Continue Reading >>
Stories tagged with EDAPROSPO
Meet Julia - a 46 year old woman with 4 children who lives in the Cupiche province of Peru. Growing up, she always loved eating her mother's cakes and helping her bake. When Julia worked as a domestic mother in the past, she started to practice her mother's craft by baking and reading cookbooks. As her passion for baking grew, she decided to study Bakery at a local institute, where she mastered her... Continue Reading >>
Yes, folks, I present to you, Kiva field partner EDAPROSPOs jack-of-all-trades Kiva Coordinator - HARRIS. (his official title is Asistente de Finanzas y Operaciones, aka Finance and Operations Assistant, for all you non-Spanish speakers reading this correspondence.)
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Life in Peru has been wonderfully intense, exciting, tiring, and challenging over the last few weeks. I am not going to dwell on the awesome ceviche and seafood I have been fortunate enough to eat. Nor will I say much about the recent 5.1 earthquake that originated 50 miles off the coast of Lima (or 4.6, depending on where you get your earthquake news from).
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Let me introduce you to Carmen, Maria and Lina, from the group “Siempre 10 Al Progreso”. They live in the same neighbourhood in Lima, Peru’s capital, so they have known each other for a long time. But since 2008 they share more than their neighbourhood: they belong to the same “alcancía comunal”.
An “alcancía comunal”, sometimes referred to as a communal bank, is a self-organized group of borrowers who guarantee each other’s loans. Most of the loans at Edaprospo, the organization where I am placed, are...
Continue Reading >>Eduarda Carmo Vaz | KF18 | Peru
For those of you who have never been in Peru on a 28th of June, you might have missed a very important fact: today is the NATIONAL CEVICHE DAY.
Ceviche, a dish made of fresh raw fish marinated in lemon juice and spices, is without a doubt the most famous Peruvian dish.
So what does a Kiva Fellow in Lima do on such a day? Logically, she goes to a “Ceviche Festival.”
One of the delicious ceviche stands.
'...
Continue Reading >>By Bryan Goldfinger, KF9, Peru
Throughout my “roaming” fellowship, I’ve had a lot of time to think; hours-long bus rides, walks, taxi trips, plane rides, time alone, time surrounded by others but when I felt alone, time spent just waiting, you get the idea. One theme that seems to consistently find its way into my thoughts is movement.
Being dubbed a “roamer,” movement is somewhat inherent in my role. Each new week promises a new microfinance institution (MFI) branch and most likely a new city. Each day promises the visit to new borrowers...
Continue Reading >>By Bryan Goldfinger, KF9 (Peru)
At the KF9 graduation ceremony, each newly appointed Fellow received a Thank You card signed by most of the Kiva staff. Many staff members included a simple message and their signature (keep in mind, each one had to write on 49 separate cards), several included a witty remark and one or two left longer messages possibly containing some parting advice for the field. Although I appreciated each message and signature equally, there was one that stuck out from the rest, not necessarily because of who wrote it, or because it was written in green...
Continue Reading >>By Rob Mittelman, KF8, Peru
Most days I struggle with what I see.
The academic in me would explain the concept of economic dualism as the coexistence of modern and traditional sectors within a single economy, especially as found in less-developed countries. Modern and traditional are perhaps polite terms for rich and poor (that’s not the academic in me, that’s the cynic). The division between rich and poor, or modern and traditional, is as great here as I’ve seen in Latin America. Statistics may say otherwise but I see a great...
Continue Reading >>by Rob Mittelman, KF8, Peru
When I visit Kiva Borrowers, I bring along a colour printout of their Kiva Profile for them to keep. For many of them it’s a real thrill. They knew their information was on the internet but had never seen their page, their picture, or read their own story before (our stories appear in the original Spanish underneath the English translation). It usually gets passed around and shown to all present. There are always lots of giggles and some embarrassment as I tell them people in the US...
Continue Reading >>by Rob Mittelman, KF8 Peru
In the immortal words of Austin Powers, “Allow myself to introduce…myself”. My name is Rob Mittelman from Ottawa, Canada and I’m a member of KF8 headed to Lima, Peru to work with Edaprospo. When I’m not working as a Kiva Fellow, I’m a PhD in Management Candidate at Carleton University.
When I first traveled to South America and was called gringo, I was very defensive. I always thought it was a pejorative term for Americans. I’m a proud Canadian after all; I’m no gringo.
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