K-MET is a non-governmental reproductive health and development organization registered in the Republic of Kenya under the Trustees Act in 1996. The founders, mainly in the health profession, were moved by the suffering they witnessed at the community level in Kenya. This group conceptualized KMET in 1995, compelled by the adage “charity begins at home.”

 

KMET is driven by a vision of communities with accessible quality reproductive health services where every child is wanted with a mission to promote development in underserved communities through innovative health and education programs.

 

Currently KMET operates in five of the eight Kenyan provinces with an emphasis on post-abortion care, clinical services, home-based care, nutrition (as a component of home-based care, food security and outpatient therapeutic program for children less than 5 years), microfinance, youth-for-youth programmes and a safe motherhood initiative. The organization’s headquarters are in Kisumu City, but K-MET is renowned internationally, and the staff act as reproductive health consultants in several sub-Saharan African countries. K-MET also has a student and volunteer program that incorporates local Kenyan students as well as international students and volunteers. 

 

As a community-led NGO, KMET offers a unique 5-step reproductive health intervention process that is upstream and innovative:

 

1. Identification of Systemic Gaps in Reproductive Health services

2. Identification of Available Local Resources

3. Education and Training of Appropriate Workforce

4. Development of Community and Professional Networks

5. Ensuring Project Sustainability

 

All these are guided by KMET’s Strategic Plan (2007 – 2010).

 

 

To ensure sustainability of her community-based health and development programs, KMET initiated the Revolving Loan Fund in 2004 (with funding from Planned Parenthood Federation of America - PPFA), a creative microfinance initiative that has enabled more than 450 community-based volunteers and private service providers to access loans, allowing them to serve over 4000 underserved community members in Western and Eastern regions of Kenya. Further support was received from KIVA from 2006. 

 

The revolving loan fund is available to community-based service providers as incentives for them to continue their essential work as volunteers in their villages. These providers have used the loans to initiate, improve and or expand their income generating activities and help to alleviate poverty within their communities thus improving their economic empowerment. HIV/AIDS orphans and vulnerable children under their care have also benefited in terms of the improved availability of the basic needs.

 

K-MET Integrated Community Health Centre (KMET Complex)

 

KMET strives to have all its programs sustainable and is undergoing a capital campaign for its own Community Integrated Health Centre. This centre will offer a one-stop facility for integrated health services to the underserved communities in Kisumu. When completed, KMET Complex will embody the Integration of reproductive health into the core business of development, which experts see as an important part of the process of achieving the vision of a healthy society. Construction of the complex is currently underway and the ground floor, which will house a community bank in the microfinance program, is set to open by December 2009.

 

To learn more about K-MET see www.kmet.co.ke. Join the K-MET lending team here: "K-MET Fans" .

 

K-Met Savings and Credit Cooperative (K-Met SACCO) has $30,657 in loans on Kiva currently in arrears out of a total outstanding portfolio of $40,609.  As a result, its delinquency rate as expressed on the Kiva website is currently 75.49%.

 

As indicated by this delinquency rate, K-Met SACCO is currently overdue in remitting funds to Kiva. Kiva paused K-Met SACCO in mid-2010 following a borrower verification that uncovered the organization’s inability to comply with Kiva policies regarding the posting of exact disbursement dates.  Since then, K-Met has remitted $25,104.50 in funds to Kiva for repayments collected from their borrowers.

 

As K-Met SACCO's delinquency rate has increased, Kiva's Portfolio staff has been in discussions with the organization about past due payments.  To increase the chances of recovering lender funds, Kiva has negotiated an interest-free promissory note with K-Met SACCO.  This note has a fixed repayment schedule with K-Met SACCO responsible for sending $5,000 back to Kiva lenders on a monthly basis.  Payments will continue until the $40,609 in outstanding funds are repaid.

 

When an organization restructures its debt to Kiva lenders with a promissory note, Kiva's policy is to collect the full amount of funds lent from Kiva lenders to the organization's borrowers, which, because of delinquencies and defaults by individual borrowers, may exceed the amount actually repaid by individual borrowers.  This is because it is difficult to verify delinquencies and defaults to individual borrowers in these situations.  As repayments come in, funds will paid out to Kiva lender accounts on a pro-rated basis, based on the percentage of total loans outstanding for each month.

 

By agreeing to the new fixed repayment schedule, Kiva believes it is maximizing the chances of recovering lender funds.  In addition, the fixed repayment schedule will give K-Met SACCO additional time to seek other funding in order to continue its valuable microfinance programs in western Kenya.  Since initiating its partnership with Kiva in November 2006, K-MetSACCO has raised $373,350 on Kiva and been able to significantly expand access to loans to community health workers and private medical providers in Kenya.

 

K-Met’s delinquency rate may continue to increase until fixed repayments clear out the arrears.  In the meantime, we will maintain the pause in the relationship with K-Met SACCO. The organization will remain a 1 star partner on the website during this time.

 

We will keep this page updated with further updates as information becomes available.

 

 

K-Met Savings and Credit Cooperative (K-Met SACCO) was paused in early August 2010 following a routine process known as "borrower verification". 

 

Borrower verification entails interviewing a random sample of 10 Kiva borrowers from the same field partner to help ensure the information on the ground matches the information on Kiva’s website. To accomplish this, Kiva verifies the identity of the borrower, the disbursement date, the loan amount, the loan term, the loan usage and the repayment information. 

 

During the borrower verification process, we discovered some data inconsistencies in borrower profiles posted to Kiva by K-Met SACCO. We believe that these inconsistencies were the result of K-Met SACCO posting loans that clients had applied for but had not yet been disbursed. As a result, some loan amounts were reduced after the application which caused them not to match the figures on Kiva. 

 

While we investigated further, we paused K-Met SACCO in early August. As a precondition for unpausing K-Met SACCO, we have requested that the organization propose a set of process changes that will ensure these inconsistencies do not develop again. Kiva continues to await receipt of this proposal and will consider the submission once received. 

 

 

This organization has been paused pending an examination of KMET's posting process. 

 

 

Please note that this Lending Partner started working with Kiva before certain core risk and due diligence policies were put into place and therefore does not meet our current minimum risk criteria (K-Met has less than 1,000 borrowers and has not submitted recent audited financial statements to Kiva). K-Met is a unique microfinance organization that targets private health care providers and community health workers as a means to fulfill its mission of promoting development in underserved communities through innovative health and education programs. Private providers are given loans to upgrade their facilities and community health workers, who volunteer through K-Met, are given access to loan funds to grow their businesses and as a means of incentivizing them to remain involved in community health work with K-Met. Kiva was K-Met’s first external lender and the organization is rated a Kiva Star Rating of 1, which is the riskiest level. As a result of K-Met’s strong social mission and unique approach to microfinance and health, Kiva believes that loans to borrowers with K-Met may still be of interest to Kiva lenders, despite the increased risk, and has allowed the organization to continue fundraising on Kiva.