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Stories tagged with Juhudi Kilimo (JK)
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Are tablets a practical solution to rural microfinance operations?
This is the big question I am working to answer during my 4 months in beautiful Kenya. This appears to be a simple question with an obvious answer. However, after traveling over 1000 kilometers in one week throughout urban and rural Kenya, I have learned about the obstacles that will make tabletizing Kiva... Continue Reading >>
Varick Schwartz | KF18 | Kenya
When I applied to the Kiva Fellows program, I knew I’d be spending some time ‘in...
My Fellowship workplan has been focused a little more on the technical side of things, with more application programming and appraisal analysis than borrower verifications. From such projects, and also because I come from a banking, lending and risk management background, it seems fitting to at least put forth some observations regarding the use of credit scores across the Kenya micro landscape. However, the way we approach credit scoring in the USA is almost opposite from current practices here, where aggregated financial data at the individual level could still be years away....
Continue Reading >>Kenya’s got milk alright, and it’s a good thing, because just like good ol’ USA and Starbucks, I’m not sure what people here would do without their twice daily milk tea! Milk is big business; an integral part of Kenya’s expanding agricultural sector.
I just returned from Eldoret and the Kerio Valley and while there, I shot video footage for a new cooling plant loan product at my MFI, Juhudi Kilimo, who specializes in...
Continue Reading >>Varick Schwartz | KF18 | Kenya
As I walk down the dusty, traffic-choked streets of Nairobi on my way to work, I feel the stress melting away. Another cool morning; Kenyans all around wearing coats and sweaters to fend off ‘winter.’ I’m fine in a light shirt, having grown accustomed to ‘summer’ in San Francisco.
The warmth of the people here is part of the reason that it’s easy for me to release stress, to allow immersion within conditions so different. Smiles beget smiles, for the most part. No one is in a hurry; I haven’t...
Continue Reading >>out the door
buses whirr
unknown blur
…
step step step
beep beep merge
Nairobi incurred!
…
malls open
wares earn
TURN
history learned
…
development collides
cellular flies
safari eyes
…
catch a ride
surf the tide
I cross to the other side…
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By Nila Uthayakumar, KF14 Uganda and KF15 Kenya
“It was my first day on the job,” Nathan says with a wide grin.
“I wore a coat and tie, I looked very smart! I was going to work for a bank, sit in a swiveling chair, and swing my legs!”
Nathan and I are standing on the side of a road. The occasional share-taxi barrels past us, but mostly we are surrounded by the hush of farmland that...
Continue Reading >>By Tara Capsuto, KF13, Kenya
This blog really is about giant bunnies. It’s also about asset financing and how loan groups are working together, with the help of Juhudi Kilimo (one of Kiva’s field partners) to raise rabbits and boost their incomes. Juhudi provides an innovative, agriculture-based, micro-asset financing loan product to assist smallholder farmers in acquiring productive assets such as dairy cows, chickens, irrigation equipment, and most recently, giant Flemish rabbits.
Juhudi Kilimo’s...
Continue Reading >>Kiva Field Partner Juhudi Kilimo has been nominated by Changemakers and Artemisia as a model of how to build the field of social business. Juhudi qualified as one of 448 entries from 78 countries as an outstanding demonstration of innovation, social impact, and sustainability.
Vote now until August 11 to help them win $5000. The winner will be announced on August 18th.
Juhudi Kilimo is an innovative social enterprise working with small-holder farmers in Kenya. They became a Kiva Field Partner in January 2010 and have already posted over $250,000 in loans on Kiva....
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