Behind the Scenes… The Trilogy: Training 23 Kiva Agents

For my Kiva Fellowship I was very lucky to have been placed with One Acre Fund, one of Kiva’s Field Partners in Kenya. I have been in this beautiful country serving as a Fellow for a month and a half, learning about microfinance and its impact at a local level and... I think it’s time for an update!

One Acre Fund is a non-profit organization that supplies smallholder farmers with the tools and financing they need to grow their way out of hunger and poverty. Participating farmers receive a complete bundle of agricultural inputs and services on credit, including the delivery of improved seeds and fertilizer, training on how to maximize crop yields, and education on how to minimize post-harvest losses.

Kiva and One Acre Fund have been partners for over 3 years, during which Kiva lenders all around the world have funded thousands of One Acre Fund farmers’ loans.

It is weird to think that just a few years ago I made my first loan through Kiva to a group of farmers in Kenya, and that now I am in that same country, working to serve that same population and helping to provide a bridge of interaction between people from all walks of life… which is what inspired me to join the Kiva community in the first place!

I am now half way through my Fellowship and as the Kiva season starts, the workload is starting to increase exponentially. Up to now I have been involved in making sure that we are extremely well prepared for the coming season, which entailed a lot of work in areas such as budgeting, procurement or logistics.

However, I have made sure to spend most of my time thoroughly organizing and designing the many Field and Data Entry Materials that we will need, making these as sustainable and as simple as possible in order to be able to post as many farmers as we can on to the Kiva website.

In this “Trilogy” (I am just so stupidly proud of the title!) I will talk about the three main “behind the scenes” steps that need to happen for the Kiva project to be able to exist:

Today, I will tell you all about the first one, that has recently taken place at the One Acre Fund HQ offices and, for the other two… you will just have to stay tuned as I post them in the next couple of weeks!

Kiva Agents are the people who go to the field and are in charge of collecting the information needed from farmers in order to create Kiva Profiles.

Essentially, they are in charge of conducting multiple Kiva Meetings across districts in which they explain; what Kiva is, its relationship to One Acre Fund, what information is needed from farmers, how and where this information will be used provided the farmers give consent to Kiva, and then, subsequently collect such information.

However, before doing so, they need to be trained on how to conduct these Kiva Meetings, and as you can see this is a lot to take in in a one-day training session!