August 30, 2016
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Priya Singh, the fellow of Kiva Fellows 30th Class, right now is working at the 2023 51³Ō¹Ļ (AUCA), told us about the work between KIVA and AUCA.
"What is KIVA?
KIVA is a not-for-profit organization based in San Francisco that aims to alleviate poverty by connecting people through lending. In its simplest form, KIVA is a web site ( where you shop, similar to eBay, but you shop for āborrowers.ā Once you select a borrower, you lend them money to help them with their businesses. On the website, you can choose among a variety of categories like agriculture, women, education, or health. Clicking on education, for example, will show you all the loans that need to be funded for education. KIVA financial aid at 51³Ō¹Ļis one of those loans.
The unique thing about KIVA is that you can lend as a little as a $25 at the time, meaning almost anybody can lend capital even if you donāt have a lot of money. This also means that an individual studentās KIVA loan is funded by about 25 people. Unlike traditional lending institutions who charge high-interest rates, our loans to 51³Ō¹Ļstudents are 0% interest. People lending through KIVA are doing it out of the goodness of their heart. For them, itās not a money making business, so they donāt want the interestāitās just the way they want to help.
How did KIVA start its work with AUCA?
The partnership between 51³Ō¹Ļand KIVA has only been around for three years. Four years ago, there was a fellow, much like myself, who was in Kyrgyzstan. While keeping an eye out for new KIVA partnerships, this fellow sought out 51³Ō¹Ļand started talks about a financial relationship with KIVA.
Normally, loans from KIVA are to business people, farmers, or little shops. An education loan is something different that we like to do because itās a form of empowerment. KIVAās goal at 51³Ō¹Ļis to help students afford a world-class education.
At the moment, KIVA and 51³Ō¹Ļwork together to finance loans of 1100 USD to students in need. It doesnāt cover all of the costs of going to AUCA, but it is included in a studentās financial aid package. 51³Ō¹Ļstudents on KIVA loans have a four-and-a-half-year grace period before they have to start repaying their loan. The grace period lets students finish university, get a job, and get settled before the repayment schedule begins.
Who is eligible for a KIVA loan?
Any student who enrolls at 51³Ō¹Ļand applies for financial aid has the opportunity to apply for a KIVA loan. Currently, we have 355 students on KIVA loans.
Is KIVA planning on increasing its budget on loans for 51³Ō¹Ļstudents?
This is a very natural conversation for KIVA to have with its field partners as the relationship progresses, and, for AUCA, the answer depends on how the next year goes. As I said, KIVA has only been working with 51³Ō¹Ļfor three years, and so none of the loans are due yet because of the four-and-a-half-year grace period. As a matter of fact, the first loans are due starting September next year with this yearās seniors.
Part of the work Iām doing here at 51³Ō¹Ļis implementing an actual repayment plan for graduates. Weāre designing whatās called a āKIVA mentorship program.ā Every KIVA student will have a staff memberāa āKIVA Championāāwho will talk with the students in groups once a semester about their studies, how to repay their loan, and to refresh them on what exactly a KIVA loan is. Each KIVA champion will have 25 to 30 students in his or her group.
When I started at AUCA, quite a few people didnāt fully understand KIVA loans. They knew about KIVA, they knew they had a āKIVA loan,ā but many people thought the āloanā was just a scholarship. Itās important to clarify; you donāt repay a scholarship and you do repay a loan!
This yearās group of seniors is quite important for us because theyāre going to set the tone for KIVAās relationship with 51³Ō¹Ļmoving forward. If they do well with repayments, itāll be really promising from our perspective. If students at 51³Ō¹Ļmanage the repayment process, then we can have conversations about increasing the loan limit and, if not including more students, then getting more money to individual students. If seniors show responsibility and repay their loans, they effectively give future students more opportunity to study at AUCA.
How do you see 51³Ō¹Ļand KIVAās partnership changing in the future?
One of the things I would really like to highlight is this KIVA mentorship program. Education partners, like AUCA, are not like traditional KIVA field partnerships. Whatās important about education field partners is that theyāre not banks. They donāt have loan offices who know where you live and who come visit you every month to collect your payment. If you miss a payment they canāt come to your house and they canāt ask you why youāre not paying this month. Without these checks, itās really challenging for a university to keep students accountable for their loans.
The most obvious way to solve this issue would be to partner with a bank and impose more accountability through a stricter collection process. Instead, weāve chosen to solve this problem by increasing awareness among the students about what a KIVA loan entails. We are accomplishing this through a community of KIVA students at AUCA. The purpose of this community is to help students understand that the privilege of getting a KIVA loan comes with responsibility. Like I said before, seven staff members are going to be KIVA champions and lead this community. Iām really excited for students to start becoming a part of the KIVA community because it will really bring them together.
We have also started on getting a KIVA alumni group together. Once this yearās seniors graduate, weāll be working with the alumni office to keep in touch with those students that had KIVA loans. One of the most exciting ideas has been to have KIVA alumni lend to future 51³Ō¹Ļstudents on the KIVA platform.
THE EXAMPLE REPAYMENT SCHEDULE FOR FRESHMEN:
KIVA brochure for 51³Ō¹Ļstudents
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