Microfinance in Ayacucho —
My awesome sister-in-law Suzy is in Ayacucho, Peru, volunteering for Kiva for around nine months. One of the difficulties with poverty relief charities is that people feel a disconnect between their donation and the result, and Kiva works around this problem by personalizing the process of making a loan to a specific entrepreneur. Kiva also empowers recipients by organizing loans that the recipients are expected to pay back.
Suzy’s working with a local microfinance organization, interviewing potential borrowers and uploading their profiles to the main Kiva site for lenders to see. She’s posted three times to the main Kiva Fellows blog now, and I hereby humbly present her posts. You should read them.
- Ayacucho’s voice in Peru’s Amazon conflict
- What if microfinance really does work?
- I know I can. Be what I want to be.
(Updated on 2009-07-22 to add the third link.)
I agree with Suzy there is a serious disconnect with the donation and the result and tackling this problem is difficult. in most 3rd world country there is no accountability and money gets lost between the donor and the recepient. I think Direct linking between the donor and the recipient is the best way to solve this problem