Sopheap is a 51-year-old married mother with a child. She lives in the province of Takeo, Cambodia. She is a rice farmer, and has been cultivating rice for more 30 years. Her husband is a 60-year-old farmer as well and her only child attends school. She and her husband can make around $7 each day.
Sopheap is pictured first from the right. She is a group leader and would like to request a loan as part of a group of five members. She will use her portion to buy zinc sheets to roof the house. This loan will help her and her family to have enough money to build a house. In the future, she is going to support her child to go through university, and buy pigs and cows to fatten.
KREDIT Microfinance Institution Plc., is one of Kiva’s most established partners in Southeast Asia. The organization empowers the economically-active poor and small entrepreneurs by providing inclusive financial services. Beyond loans, KREDIT offers low-income clients complementary training in debt management, savings and budgeting. In addition, KREDIT partners with NGOs to offer training in primary health care, agricultural techniques and HIV/AIDS awareness.
For more information on KREDIT, please visit its partner page. If you would like to engage more with KREDIT and its borrowers, you can also join its lending team, KREDIT MFI Cambodia.
In a group loan, each member of the group receives an individual loan but is part of a larger group of individuals. The group is there to provide support to the members and to provide a system of peer pressure, but groups may or may not be formally bound by a group guarantee. In cases where there is a group guarantee, members of the group are responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members in the case of delinquency or default.
Kiva’s Field Partners typically feature one borrower from a group. The loan description, sector, and other attributes for a group loan profile are determined by the featured borrower’s loan. The other members of the group are not required to use their loans for the same purpose.
Many poor families cannot afford housing that meets their needs. When you make a housing loan on Kiva, you give people access to flexible capital to obtain or improve their homes. Better housing means better health, sanitation, and even educational outcomes for children. A house can also be much more for entrepreneurs who run businesses out of their homes. In this way, housing and small business loans on Kiva share a common purpose: to alleviate poverty and enable families to enjoy more stable lives.