Waive Kenya loan repayments

[Guest]

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[Kefr]

In consideration of the tragedy unfolding in Kenya, I am willing to waive the remaining payments from my Kenya lendees.  Is this practical? Or should I just donate the money to Kiva and let them distribute as they deem appropriate in Kenya?

[cpbailey]

Kefr,

There are several discussions about the Kenya issues.  There is no way to know at this time if an individual has been adversely affected or has been amazingly lucky.  Since Kiva does not supply all of the funds for loans through the partner, it is arbitrary to forgive some loans but not others (which may be from local people who NEED their money back).  Furthermore, if a bunch of loans are forgiven when the borrowers could pay the loans back, then in the future borrowers may come to expect forgiveness.  That is not Kiva nor Kiva borrowers' role to determine which loans are forgiven.  Rather it is the partner who has to decide which borrowers cannot make the payments (and they will work to modify loans) and which ones can.  The partner must make sound decisions so that their policies are consistent from borrower to borrower and over time.

Kiva may not want to get into a role of granting grants, even by generous loaners.  Kiva Friends has gathered money for other causes, and it has handled it separately.  Also, I suspect the bookkeeping for a modest sum would be simpler to handle on our own.  Kiva folks seem pretty busy just keeping loans on-line!

Eb-F has a website which does take donations, and this is one simple option; they take Paypal even.  Here is a link for the discussion and this link (which is somewhat buggy from the sounds of how one must access one feature).  There are other ideas on how to help.

Colette

[Diane R]

Please see the discussions in the following threads:

"news from E-bony about situation in Kenya":  http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,1632.0.html

"Mark Agwonah Fund -- discussion":  http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,682.msg20117.html#msg20117  (starting at #256)

"Ebony Foundation - Gabriel Ndegwa Kiarie":  http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,1635.0.html


While some folks want to immediately waive all their loan repayments, it is also worth considering that this may not be the best thing for the MFIs.  They will know best who needs some grace and who does not, and even Muhammed Yunus speaks *against* waiving a loan.

There is no mechanism at this time through Kiva for you to waive your loan contributions, or redirect them.  What you will see in the above threads is that some of us are looking for ways to send contributions directly to the MFIs which will be working much harder in the near future to determine the status of all of their clients on a case-by-case basis.  One of the KivaFriends expects to hear tomorrow about a mechanism for contributing to Eb-F (Ebony Foundation), and others are looking for ways to contribute to the other MFIs.  I think this may be the best course of action at this time.

--Diane.
(PS:  Welcome to KivaFriends!)