My seemingly chaotic life has temporarily come to a standstill now that I am officially in transit to the Philippines.
The past few weeks have been an absolute whirlwind – I left my job at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Menlo Park, took the GMAT, and attended an intense week-long training session at Kiva headquarters in San Francisco, all while preparing for my 5 month hiatus from my life in California.
I now have thirty-six hours till I reach my final destination - Tagbilaran City, Bohol, where I will serve as a Kiva Fellow at Community Economic Ventures, Inc (CEVI).
As a Kiva Fellow, I will have the opportunity to engage in microfinance as a tool for poverty alleviation on a personal level, facilitate connections between lenders and borrowers by increasing transparency in the Kiva process, and help increase efficiency at CEVI through trainings, among other things.
For those of you who are less familiar with microfinance, microfinance consists of several different financial services for the poor. Microcredit, which is what Kiva focuses on, is the process of disbursing small loans to poor people so that they can utilize that capital to become self-sufficient and repay their loans in a manageable way. Through microlending, poor people can begin to break away from the cycle of poverty that their families have faced for generations. This is what excites me most about it!
As I guide you through my adventures in South East Asia, I ask you all to do something for me in return – please share your thoughts with me! I would love to get as interactive on this blog as possible so if you have any questions or suggestions please don’t hesitate to share! I want to share this experience with each and every one of you and even though you can’t be out here with me, I urge you to join in and make this your journey as well.
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