Kiva conducts regular, ongoing monitoring of all Lending Partners, but only posts status updates here in response to relevant, major changes at the partner.

Status update — July 19, 2017
YICE's final loans with Kiva have ended or defaulted, and this partnership has now been closed. YICE joined Kiva as an experimental partner and lenders’ funds were used to support specialized agricultural training programs for vulnerable women, including single mothers and out-of-school girls, and to help them start their own farming businesses. Through the partnership, 79 groups of vulnerable women and girls were supported to establish farms. In 2016 and 2017 the organization faced serious difficulties due to drought and 2 subsequent failed harvest seasons, which has led YICE to stop their lending program. For the past year, Kiva has been working with YICE to try to recover the remaining outstanding amount due to Kiva lenders. Kiva’s present assessment is that this Lending Partner is unable to make further payments, and thus the remaining $3,600 in outstanding amounts due to Kiva lenders has now been defaulted. 

Partner Description:

Youth Initiative for Community Empowerment (YICE) is a registered women and youth empowerment initiative in Central Uganda. Aiming to empower vulnerable women and young people both economically and socially, it provides four core services:

1) Training vulnerable women and out-of-school girls in farming as a business
2) Advancing sexual and reproductive health as well as HIV/AIDS rights
3) Conducting youth vocational and skills development trainings
4) Integrated care and support for orphans and other high-risk children

Founded in 2010, YICE began by organizing focus group discussions to better understand clients’ needs. It quickly identified women as a hard-to-reach group that needed specific intervention. They determined that many widows and out-of-school girls in Uganda live in poverty and depend on subsistence farming. Most of these women are illiterate, marginalized in their communities or come from abusive homes.

Early on, the initiative supported 10 widows and 5 out-of-school girls to establish small farming enterprises, produce vegetables, grow local poultry and rear pigs. In the future, YICE is planning to organize financial literacy programs to build the capacity of vulnerable women even more.

Kiva lenders’ funds are used to support specialized agricultural training programs for vulnerable women, including single mothers and out-of-school girls, and to help them start their own farming businesses. Kiva’s flexible, risk-tolerant capital enables YICE to impact a large group of vulnerable women by teaching them how to establish small farming enterprises. Participants are also introduced to financial management, record keeping and other skills.



YICE’s impact:

Since its inception, YICE has enabled widows and out-of-school girls to establish sustainable farming businesses. With the income gained from selling products, these women expand their enterprises, and buy food, soap, paraffin, clothes, and school supplies for orphaned children. Several of the out-of-school girls are expected to earn between $30 to $70 monthly from eggs through their local chicken enterprises.

Additionally, the organization has trained mothers as peers educators in sexual and reproductive health. These trainees have reached 860 households in 10 villages with information on sexual reproductive health, HIV/AIDS and maternal health. As a result, 160 people have been tested for HIV/AIDS, including 91 mothers. These numbers will continue to climb as the organization grows and becomes more established.



During YICE’s focus group discussions, a total of 247 orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) were identified. The needs of these women and children were assessed, and their capacities were improved through OVC workshops and seminars. 198 were provided with clothes and school supplies collected through a YICE Fundraising Campaign.

YICE joined Kiva through our Experimental Partnership Program, and has therefore received a lighter level of due diligence. Accordingly, loans associated with this partner carry a higher level of risk than typical Kiva loans.

Images courtesy of Youth Initiative for Community Empowerment.