120 Borrowers in 120 Minutes

As currently the only Fellow serving in West Africa, I feel quite responsible for ensuring that I do my absolute best when representing not only Kiva (#KivaLove) but also my field partner and my American homeland. (My current partner is a microfinance organization called Grameen Ghana that serves clients in the Northern Region of Ghana. It is not affiliated with the Grameen Foundation but rather - per the organization’s Credit Manager - follows the model of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.) You can thus imagine my intimidation when I arrived in Nyolugu, a rural village about an hour outside of Tamale, earlier this week to greet almost 120 eager female Kiva borrowers and their many (repeat, many) children. On the way to the meeting, I was informed that these women’s groups of shea nut processors rise early on disbursal dates to travel to a predetermined location in the village in order to collectively receive funds from Grameen; they are usually quite prompt and awaiting disbursement by 9AM. Myself along with Grameen’s Credit Manager, the regional Credit Officer and a Shea Coordinator from another partner organization of Grameen’s (PlaNet Finance), however, did not arrive until about 1PM that day due to a late morning cash collection that was the result of a bank closure on a religious holiday the day before. It was further explained to me that these women’s groups don’t normally have their first meal until after their funds have been collected, so being late was quite unfortunate. (Welp. There go first impressions!)

At the Disbursement Table with Grameen's Credit Manager and Regional Credit Officer