"WE ARE BETTER TOGETHER." PLEASE ACT NOW FOR ACTION NOW:KENYA

[Guest]

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[wannado]

Just to let you know, several Kiva Friends contributed to help out ANK.  Irene was very happy to receive these funds, and they relieve her of a great burden because the money will help cover some operational costs so they can continue lending to clients.

The ANK staff are currently making field visits to the Kiva clients that they can still reach (after the post-election violence).  Irene wants to know if there are any ANK borrowers that Kiva Friends are especially interested in getting information about.  If you have an ANK borrower that you especially want to get an update for, let me know and I'll pass that information on to Irene.  She will make a special effort to provide photos and updates for those clients.  You can post here, or send me a PM.

Marsha

[Jan & John]

That's a nice offer for Irene to make on our behalf as I am sure she is dreadfully busy already. 

I only have one AN:K default and we did accept 'additional risk' when we made the loan so I don't agonize over our $15.08 loss. 

I just revisited the story and do see a couple of teeny tiny payments posted recently (and mentioned on their partner page) and wonder if chasing after these monies now wouldn't actually be detrimental to the client.  The pollyanna in me would be more inclined to lend to them again.  It would, however, be nice to know if the business managed to be successful despite all the problems they have had. 

I would love to hear that AN:K itself has pulled around and is managing to do the job that was Irene's original intention.  (the last loan I made to Kenya was to a borrower with the same last name

-jan-

[Peter S]

here's something I happened across today, a blog by Peter Glover, a student at American University, Washington DC, who is spending time in Kenya under the AU Abroad program:

. . .
I'm interning with Action Now Kenya (ANK), a small non-profit which provides micro loans and business training to people living in the informal settlements of Nairobi.  ANK has three full time employees and four community workers who occasionally report back to home base.  In 2007 ANK started working as a partner organization with the microfinance agency Kiva (http://www.kiva.org/).  In this relationship Kiva dealt with the investors and ANK dealt with the clients (the people receiving the loans).  Soon after partnering with Kiva, ANK and Kiva dispersed over $100,000 in small loans.  The timing, however, was incredibly bad, just a few months later post election violence erupted in Nairobi (http://tinyurl.com/ycuwu5j).  The fires, violence, displacement of people, and looting were most intense in informal settlements and so many of ANK's clients were unable to pay back their loans because their businesses were destroyed or looted.  When Kiva asked for money from ANK to pay back the investors, ANK wasn't able to reimburse the investors at once and is still trying to do so today.  On a positive note, ANK recently started a new loan program independent from Kiva.
. . .

http://thoughtsandstoriesfromkenya.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-internship.html


~Peter

[Jan & John]

here's something I happened across today, a blog by Peter Glover, a student at American University, Washington DC, who is spending time in Kenya under the AU Abroad program:
http://thoughtsandstoriesfromkenya.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-internship.html


~Peter

lovely Peter, thanks... I have this soft corner of my heart for ANK (and I'm only down $15 on one of their loans) and wonder sometimes if there is another way to help out.  It's good to get some kind of news that shows everything is not all bad for them.
-jan-

[Jill]

The link posted earlier this morning in Other Pleasures about the Lion Lights kid* set me off on a merry chase.  It led me to this much more sobering story about Africa, to a video that was a whole lot more effective in giving an idea of what Kibera is like than all my photos and anecdotes about it ever could.

Thinking about the history of this thread, I found I just now had to censor myself and ended up vaporizing the much different post I'd started to place here.

Instead, I'm just going to mention two things:

1-The post election violence in Kenya of a few years ago that ended up being cataclysmic and catastrophic not only to so many of the poor people in Kenya, many of them Kiva entrepreneurs, but to some of Kiva’s most stalwart, struggling and dedicated shoestring field partners of the time is very much threatening to repeat itself around the presidential election that is about to take place, that, according to a wide variety of sources. I’m actually quite worried about it and will be beyond expression relieved if all the doomsayers end up being proven wrong as I’m so very much hoping they will.


2-Irene and Florence are going to have the opportunity of meeting and being able to spend some time together later this year.  As I’ve now had the tremendous good fortune of getting to know each of them and their immeasurably caring and devoted hearts a little better than, long distance, I ever could have, the thought of their coming together and of their maybe becoming friends is one that gives me just the greatest and most inexpressible joy.
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EDIT: *Here’s the blog entry about the Maasai boy, Richard Turere, and his “Lion Lights” presentation at the TED conference, yesterday.  If, as I hope and think it probably will, his actual TED talk is going to be made available online, it may still be weeks before we’ll get to hear it.

Until then, here’s a short video which shows his ingenious contraption at work and why it’s of such great value.  Apparently, it’s in great demand now, all over Kenya, which is a good thing, a life-sustaining thing for the lions, for the Kenyans’ livestock, and for young, wonderfully enterprising Richard, who took his family responsibilities so seriously to heart.

[charity]

Thanks for posting this video Jill!  I will have to watch it.

[Jill]

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/02/201322611354830290.html

[charity]

Thanks for posting these links Jill - My thoughts will be with Kenyans today during their election.  I hope things stay peaceful.  My first three Kiva loans were to a Sarah, Emmy and Laurence in Kenya in 2007, just prior to their last presidential election.