Kenya
By Jeremy Gordon, KF11, Kenya
On July 26th, Erick Bii updated the 21 lenders that had supported his loan with the state of his business, the impact of his loan on his family, and his recent challenges. To read the full journal, click on the quote above.
To communicate with his lenders, Erick didn’t need to travel to the Juhudi branch office in Litein, or even sit down with a loan officer at his farm. Instead, he responded to a series of SMS questions sent to him via...
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By Jeremy Gordon, KF11 and Rachel Brooks, KF10, Kenya
“Esther Keino hopes Juhudi will consider giving loans without requiring solidarity groups in future as group lending is sometimes discouraging because not all members are reliable.”
“Peter is grateful Juhudi Kilimo is focusing on the rural poor who would otherwise have limited or no access to capital. He likes the funding for dairy cows as it is not just for financial purposes but also for social purposes, as it improves the health of families.”
Kiva entrepreneurs can often be a little uncomfortable...
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Juhudi Kilimo CFO: Kevin, when you’re out in Litein, make sure you ear-tag at least one cow for our Micro Insurance program.
Me: Ummm yea, I may pass on that one, but I’ll think about it.
Microfinance… To most people this word is synonymous with providing small loans to very low-income entrepreneurs. But microfinance is so much more than that. It involves...
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Hezron Murinde is a happy man. After 20 years of subsistence farming in a hilly region of Kenya’s Central Province, he’s earning a profit. It started with a chaff cutter. A chaff cutter is a big, cranky device that chops feed into small enough pieces for livestock to eat (and livestock eat a lot). The chaff cutter led to the cow. Not just any cow, but a high-yield dairy cow that produces enough milk to out-gross all the maize and beans Hezron grows across acres of land.
Hezron and...
