Kiva Fellows Program

A Kiva Fellow’s primary responsibility is to chronicle the lives of the working poor; each Fellow travels to and lives in the host country of one of our partner microfinance institutions (MFI) for a minimum of 10 weeks. During this time, the Kiva Fellow immerses himself/herself in the local culture, works with our partner’s loan officers, and conducts multiple interviews with our entrepreneurs in order to capture and convey their lives and the impact of the Kiva loan.

The descriptive and engaging journals the Fellows write (and the photos and videos they take) are regularly uploaded to Kiva.org—personalizing the lives of our entrepreneurs for the Kiva lender. By journaling on the behalf of our MFI partner, the fellows are also contributing invaluable help to the organization—reducing their already overburdened workload, helping them be more successful at reaching potential lenders, and potentially increasing the flow of Kiva Loans to that partner due to the human dimension that the journals capture.