getting there

By Shereef Zaki, KF9, Perú

Cultural issues surrounding privacy can be one of Kiva’s biggest challenges regarding implementation in the field. Not everyone wants their photo publicized and many hold suspicions when it comes time to sign a waiver. But I think the biggest challenge for Kiva is far more prosaic. The act of getting to a borrower can be an ordeal in and of itself, and things just got more ‘adventurous’ at my MFI.

EDPYME Alternativa has created a new loan product – called Capital Semilla or Seed Capital – destined specifically for clients who will become Kiva borrowers. Loans of $300 or less at a low interest rate are now offered to rural entrepreneurs. Finding them for the interview generally involves a unique combination of collective vans, collective taxis, mototaxis and walking aimlessly through fields – for hours.

And the journeys take us through landscapes that are beautiful whether through unforgivingly desolate desert or knee high cornfields with palm and locust trees spotting the hazy windless horizons.

For your viewing pleasure I have chronicled one day’s worth of transportation that Manuel (the Kiva Assistant) and I embarked on in order to find just 4 borrowers.

Photos after the jump…

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Shereef Zaki is serving as a Kiva Fellow working with the new field partner EDPYME Alternativa in Chiclayo, Perú

To view currently fundraising loans from EA click here

To become a member of the “Friends of EDPYME Alternativa” lending team click here

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