A Photo Contest, Kiva Training and Some Light Audit Work

One of the most effective ways of improving Kiva’s relationship with its partners is travelling to the branches and providing Kiva Training. Kiva training involves a refresher for the Credit Officers – the ones who make microfinance really work on the ground – about what Kiva is, how it works, why it’s important, what they need to do for a Kiva loan and finally – taking GREAT photos!

Now, I’m not a natural photographer, but as you can see from some of the Borrower Profiles on Kiva.org, neither are all our partner’s Credit Officers! So as part of Kiva training at the branches I have been having the Credit Officers go through an exercise to practice taking GREAT photos of each other using just items around them in the office – you can see some of the results in the slideshow below.

Another critical part of a Fellow’s experience is going out and performing Borrower Verifications. Aside from the adventure and connection Fellows get from these often remote borrower visits and the audit function it provides for Kiva, we also get a chance to practice our own Borrower Profile photography! – again, you can see the results in the slideshow below.

Click to view slideshow.

Here at SMEP, as an added incentive for our many talented Credit Officers we are planning to organize a photo competition between SMEP’s 42 branches – which of these photos would you give the prize to? ( You can vote at the bottom of Gallery):

Patrick Seeton is a Kiva Fellow, working in Kenya this summer with Kiva Zip and field partner SMEP Deposit Taking Microfinance, a microfinance institution based in Nairobi with close to 40 branches throughout Kenya. Find out how you can become a Kiva Fellow or just more information on kiva and microfinance in general on kiva.org.