KIVA has gone global and I want my vision of grassroots, integrated development driven by the progressive blogsphere to keep up.
EAST AFRICA:
KIVA began by working with the Village Enterprise Fund to build small businesses in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. The Village Enterprise Fund provides training and seed money for small businesses in East Africa. I described their work in more detail in previous diaries in this series and I still strongly urge you to donate to their efforts. The effect they are having on the lives of men and women in those nations is amazing, but they need our donations to help. With our donations, VEF can help more small businesses get off the ground and this in turn will allow KIVA to help these businesses expand through microloans.
KIVA has also started working with another partner group in East Africa: the Women Economic Empowerment Consort based in Nairobi, Kenya. This group does not seem to have a website, but here is information on them from the MIX market:
WEEC started operations in 1996, by mobilizing local women in the Kiserian area to form self-help groups for mobilizing savings and starting revolving savings and credit funds. Due to demand, WEEC finally transformed itself into an NGO and was registered in 1999. Challenges include: capitalisation, technical assistance - some key areas i.e. product development, staff Development, etc.
For more information on how to help them, please contact them directly:
Women Economic Empowerment Consort
P O Box 52529-00200
Nairobi
Kenya
weec@swiftkenya.com
But now KIVA has expanded beyond East Africa into Bulgaria, Gaza, Senegal, Latin America and beyond. I want to touch on KIVA’s partner groups in these areas and suggest other groups that can help some of those same regions.
BULGARIA:
KIVA is partnered with the Regional Economic Development Center, founded in 1999 with the financial help of The Economic Development Centre "Soros" - New York and the methodic guidance of The School of Business at the University of Wisconsin, USA.
REDC helps small and medium -size business in Bulgaria by means of training courses, informational and technical support, thus contributing to the economic stability and development of the region.
This organization currently focuses its efforts in and around Sliven, Bulgaria. My Bulgarian co-worker informs me that Sliven actually is the most economically stable area of Bulgaria, so this may be the area of Bulgaria that needs help the least. However, help is still needed and, through their partnership with the US Peace Corps and KIVA, REDC will be able to lend efficiently to small businesses in 113 locales in Bulgaria by leveraging the Peace Corps’ network of 178 volunteers. To find out how you can help this organization build small businesses in Bulgaria, contact Nikolay Sijimov
E-mail: redc@sliven.net . Nikolay helps run REDC and has a background in both economics and ecology.
Bulgaria is another nation that I would love to be able to help. I have a Bulgarian co-worker who has told me a great deal about life in Bulgaria before and after the fall of communism and the political situation there. He has told me of the popular protests he participated in that brought down the communist party rule in 1996. But Bulgaria’s history is a fascinating one even before all of this. Bulgaria was an ally of Germany in WW II, yet they stood up to Hitler and refused to deport their Jews. Bulgaria did more to save Jews in WW II than France could ever claim to have done. Bulgaria is a crossroads of Europe and Asia, combining Russian and Turkish culture. Even in ancient times Bulgaria was a crossroads, then called Thrace and linking Greece and Persia. One theory of the ancestry of the Bulgar people is that they are descendents of the Uigurs, an offshoot of the Huns who were instrumental in the downfall of the Western Roman Empire. Most Americans know little about Bulgaria, but their history of mixed cultures, tolerance for Jews and possible descent from one of the most feared Altaic invaders in history, the Huns, make it a nation that interests me greatly.
Not much aid work goes to Bulgaria. Of course there is some, but little of the kind of work that I am looking to publicize and that I am hoping the blogsphere can help with. That part of Europe is largely ignored by America. But there is one group I want to call people’s attention to. The Environmental Partnership is a consortium of six foundations in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, that are focused on mobilizing and empowering the people of the region to improve their environment, their local communities and societies. Since their establishment in 1991, the Environmental Partnership foundations have invested over USD 16 million in support of more than 5,000 individual projects and are currently the most significant private source of funding for community-based environmental initiatives in the region. To find out how you can help, Click Hereor contact the Bulgarian country director:
Fondaciya EkoObshtnost, Bulgaria
12, Parchevic Str., apt.10
Sofia 1000
Tel/fax:
+359 2 9515479,
+359 2 9515446
LATIN AMERICA:
Next is KIVA’s partner in Ecuador, Nicaragua and Honduras, Prisma MicroFinance, Inc. Prisma is a microfinance institution (MFI), registered as a U.S. based international holding company offering financial services in Latin America. Currently, they operate Nicaraguan and Honduran subsidiaries. Their principal business operations are making loans to "unbanked' customers that are ignored by the mainstream finance sector. Prisma makes loans, at risk-adjusted market rates, from $50 to $15,000 dollars. Application for services is open to anyone. Their vision is for 1% of the stock and bond portfolios held by the investing public will be invested in microfinance as a certified asset class in order to eradicate poverty by creating wealth. To find out how you can help Prisma, including internship opportunities, Click HERE.
Another organization I have invested with that helps in Nicaragua is the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua. You can participate in their microloan program in Nicaragua through investment or donation. From their website:
WCCN is a nation-wide, non-profit, membership-supported organization working in partnership with Nicaraguans to promote social and economic justice through alternative models of development and activism. Our sustainable development projects support alternative development models aimed at overcoming current economic inequalities in Nicaragua, promoting greater justice for the majority of Nicaraguans. To promote social and gender justice, including fair and equal relations between Nicaraguan men and women, WCCN works with grassroots social movements to empower communities as they overcome inequalities and exclusions.
As with Africa, economic development can only occur in the context of a healthy environment. Deforestation and loss of watersheds threatens most developing nations, including in Latin America. And, again like what I focused on in Africa, I would recommend helping Latin America’s environment through the very carefully thought out efforts of the NYC Wildlife Conservation Society, the organization that runs, among many other things, the famous Bronx Zoo (and my little neighborhood Prospect Park Zoo where I take my son). They have a Mesoamerica Program. This is from their website:
In every country in Central America, WCS has supported scientists researching the natural history of birds, mammals, and reptiles, and conducting important marine studies. These scientific endeavors contribute to conservation planning and priority-setting in the region. Site-specific work continues today, but is now applied within a comprehensive framework. Beginning in 1991, WCS introduced the innovative concept of integrating conservation initiatives among all Central American countries and Mexico by incorporating biological corridors into conventional park development programs. This notion has been adopted by governments and agencies in the region, and has garnered massive financial support from the international community. With the support of WCS, today biologists, park planners, and some politicians seek ways to link parks and protected areas together with greenways. In some cases, this also binds neighboring countries together for the welfare of all.
WCS also works in Ecuador:
In the 28,000 sq km Yasuní Landscape Conservation Area, WCS uses a “landscape-species approach” that identifies the habitat needs of key, wide-ranging species whose conservation will help ensure the protection of the entire landscape. Our work includes gathering baseline biological data on landscape species (including black caiman, tapir, and white-lipped peccary), monitoring their populations and habitats, and evaluating the impact of human activities. With local partners, WCS strengthens on-site protection and management of biological resources across the landscape. We seek to elaborate a participatory, consensus-based, and integrated landscape conservation action plan. At a broader level, WCS promotes the development of national policies that support the landscape conservation approach at Yasuní and beyond.
In northern Ecuador, WCS trains para-biologists from the Awá and Shuar indigenous groups in wildlife and forestry research techniques, conservation biology, and land use planning. We assist trainees in characterizing resource use patterns by members of the Awá and Shuar nationalities, with the ultimate goal of developing community-based wildlife management programs.
This organization does wonderful scientific, development and environmental work throughout the region and well deserves your support.
OTHER KIVA PARTNERS:
KIVA also has partners in Senegal and Gaza, but I have not had the chance to explore these organizations or other organizations working in these areas. So I will simply refer you to CRESP in Senegal, and the Shurush Initiative in Gaza. If anyone knows of some good groups in these areas, please post on them.
INTERNATIONAL:
Finally I just want to focus on a handful of groups that are working across the globe doing the kind of work that I am promoting.
Accion International does microlending around the world and was one of the pioneers in microlending.
Global Fund for Women is one of the most important international agencies for improving literacy, healthcare, employment and business opportunities for women. This agency should be top of anyone’s list for a donation.
Deans Beans is one of the best sources of Fair Trade coffee I have found. They give the best fair trade price and also help the communities that they purchase from in many other ways, like buying them water buffalo, helping tsunami recovery, etc. Great bunch of people and great coffee.
A Greater Gift, the online store associated with SERRV International, a nonprofit alternative trade and development organization. They sell a wide range of fair trade gifts, chocolate, crafts, musical instruments, coffee, nuts, jewelry, etc. They have some wonderful stuff and are a favorite of my wife and myself. From their website:
Our mission is to promote the social and economic progress of people in developing regions of the world by marketing their products in a just and direct manner.
Our goal is to alleviate poverty and empower low-income people through trade, training and other forms of community support as they work to improve their lives. SERRV has worked to assist artisans and farmers for more than 55 years through the following:
* Marketing their handcrafts and food products in a just and direct manner.
* Educating consumers in the United States about economic justice and other cultures.
* Providing development assistance to low-income craftspeople through their community-based organizations.
SERRV International was one of the first alternative trade organizations in the world and was a founding member of the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT).
We offer our artisan and farmer partners up to 50% advance payment on orders. This advance helps them to purchase raw materials and have a more regular income so they can avoid high interest rates from borrowing locally.
Conservation International is one of the best environmental groups in the world, working with indigenous communities to help preserve wilderness areas. HIGHLY recommend them.
So, in summary, this diary is much more of a mish mash than previous ones because its focus is global rather than regional. But I hope it gives you a taste for what is possible and what is needed. If I had unlimited time I would work up the Bulgarian and Latin American and other regional efforts to the same degree that I have my East Africa diaries, but for now they will all have to be lumped together in this diary.
The blogsphere is large. If each of us spread the word, bought some fair trade products, made a loan, made a donation or did some volunteer work, this grassroots development effort would get somewhere. KIVA is leading the way. But they can’t do it alone. So please try and do one thing to help.
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