By Anna Antoni, KF11, Indonesia

Sex. Ok, reproductive health. Let’s talk about reproductive health in a language you don’t speak. Ok, conversational, but far from professional. And now the setting: a women’s health training for clients from the Kiva field partner Koperasi Mitra Usaha Kecil (MUK) in a village in Bali, Indonesia.

When I REALLY realized this, I couldn’t stop wearing a huge happy grin before I started…

In a previous post I wrote about women in Indonesia, motivated by the national day for women’s emancipation in April and the fact that the Kiva...

When I was in grade school, we would start every year of Pilipino class with a lesson on what the Filipino traits were. The ones I particularly remember are: bahala na, pakikisama, hiya, mañana habit, and utang na loob. These five values inform every Kiva Fellow’s experience in the Philippines but also explain why many of the micro-entrepreneurs I’ve spoken to become borrowers in the first place. Literally translated, these words sometimes seem pejorative in English yet without understanding them, one would be hard-pressed to understand how...