HomeI last wrote about Kiva over a year ago and I have an update to my loans. As indicated in my earlier posts, I have only loaned to individuals in Kenyan. After visiting Kenya in 2007 and seeing firsthand the poverty, I couldn’t help but help. I started with three loans and when Kiva let us reloan monies before the entire loan was paid back, I kicked in a bit more money and added one new loan in Sept 2008 and another in April 2009. Last year we received word that due to political unrest in Kenya, my three original loans might not get paid back and if they were paid back the the payments would be late. This year those three loans were officially declared defaulted. From what I can tell, my three people were paying back the loans but the field partner organization was not forwarding the monies received back to Kiva. I find this sad and a bit concerning. Kiva will continue to try to recover funds from the field partner, but no new loans will be dispersed to through that field partner. Just over 40% loans were paid back before the loans defaulted. I don’t think this experience will prevent me from making future loans. The loan from Sept 2008 was paid back completely. I currently have only one loan funded, it is also from Kenya and more than half of the monies have been repaid with no problems foreseen. In seven weeks I’ll have enough in my account to relend to a new person and I probably will. I may even add some extra in as it will be the Christmas season and our family contributes to charities instead of Christmas gifts. I always donate a portion to Kiva.
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