Believing in Human Potential

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by Stefan Tangen on November 17, 2011 · 0 comments

in fellows, students, Vittana

I must admit I knew very little about the Philippines before I arrived. What I did know was that it’s an archipelago in South East Asia and the only Christian nation in Asia. I knew basically nothing about what the people, politics, economy or food was like. It was a big surprise to me that there were travel warnings for the Philippines, specifically the island of Mindanao where I’d be stationed, due to kidnappings, terrorism and political corruption. I was plainly told by Vittana about the risks prior to my departure and was even given the opportunity to change my host country to one without travel warnings. However, I decided to pursue my fellowship in the Philippines.

The Philippines is a nation in turmoil. There are a lot of problems with political corruption as it is widely known that in most important elections the votes are paid for by the politician with the most money. If money doesn’t work then fear and violence are used to ensure power. Less than two years ago the Maguindanao massacre occurred where more than 50 people were murdered with small arms. They were delivering the nomination of a candidate who would oppose the governorship of the reigning family in the province of Maguindanao. 22 journalist were murdered and it became the single deadliest day for journalists in history. Even before this event the Philippines was the second deadliest place for journalists. Second only to Iraq.

Aside from political violence there is violence from extreme terrorism. In the south of the Philippines Abu Sayyaf is a serious threat. They are Islamic extremists who are responsible for bombings, kidnappings, mass killings and are said to have links to Al Qaeda. Abu Sayyaf are often connected to lawless pirates throughout the Sulu Sea making travel throughout the region extremely hazardous. Currently the group has kidnapped several people which are being held for ransom.

Philippine soldiers across the street from the Paglaum branch in Tudela

Another Islamic group that is fighting the government is the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Possibly seen as a more legitimate group, they are fighting for self determination and the ability to govern themselves in Islamic regions of Mindanao.

There is also the New Peoples Army (NPA) which is the military arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines. Residing mostly in the jungles of remote areas throughout the Philippines the NPA has been fighting the government since 1969. The fight wages on and it is not uncommon to see Philippine soldiers in the streets armed and ready for action.

Researchers, like Patricio Justino of the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, have found that violence often exacerbates existing problems in impoverished societies. Lack of health, nutrition and education are serious side effects of widespread violence. Support from the state diminishes as more efforts are focused on military activities. Especially in places where corruption runs rampant, like here in the Philippines, very little money is invested in education. The lack of investment in human capital has long term affects for the country and seriously impairs the ability to improve the economy or combat poverty.

This is what makes Vittana’s work so important. Vittana works to combat this lack of investment in human capital. Vittana’s mission statement makes it clear that “we believe the biggest waste in the world is not oil or food or, really, any other material thing–but rather, human potential.” Vittana enables lenders to invest in students who are willing to overcome poverty, violence and any other hindrance placed in their way in order to succeed.

Average Filipino home in rural MIndanao

Cresti Luna Caliguid is a wonderful example of a student that is willing to overcome challenges in order to pursue education and make a better life for herself and her family.

Cresti Luna Caliguid’s mother passed away when she was only two years old. She is one of five children and is the second youngest. Her father is a public school teacher in Ozamiz City. As a single parent, he has somehow managed to send almost all of his children to college even on a meager teachers salary of 15,000 Philippine pesos per month($350 US dollars). Making ends meet has always been a challenge. Aware of her families financial difficulties Cresti Luna has always studied hard. Due to her hard work she received a partial scholarship at La Salle University and was also given a job at the school to help pay for her schooling. Although extremely helpful this financial assistance only covered about half of her expenses.

Sometimes Cresti doesn’t have enough money to pay for school projects, books or field trips like the CPA convention last year in Cagayan De Oro. The convention would have been a perfect opportunity to network and make vital connections that would help her land a job after graduating. However, the trip cost was well out of her price range and she had to pass up a golden opportunity.

This is a tragic and all too common story among students that I have met here in the Philippines. They scrape by with what little money available to them and are often unable to take full advantage of educational opportunities offered. For Cresti money has not prevented her from excelling in the classroom or taking part in extra curricular activities as the Chairman of the student government. This loan from Vittana is a blessing that will help her finish her Accountancy course and prepare for a successful future in business.

If you’re like us and believe in human potential then we invite you to be a part of our movement to combat poverty. Lend to one of our students here and invest in the human potential of students like Cresti Luna.

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Hello, From Your Fellow in the Philippines!

by kmunn on November 10, 2011 · 0 comments

in fellows

I would like to begin this blog entry with one of my favorite quotes: “Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told.” Well, it ‘hit’ me at a very young age…

Me, on top of the Great Wall of China

Since the moment I was able to think beyond material needs (When is mommy going to feed me? I wanna take a nap, etc. etc.), I have always had an interest in travel and in learning about cultures beyond the ones I knew. When I was 5 years old, I boasted that my goal in life was to visit every country in the world, and once I had done that, I would become an astronaut so that I could visit other planets. Since then, I have slowly been making that goal a reality. I have traveled quite extensively during my 29 years on Earth, having so far visited 42 countries (and no, I have not been to any other planets…yet!).

My name is Kim and I will be serving as a Vittana Fellow in the Philippines for the second half of 2011. Since you will be hearing from me quite often, I thought it would be important to first give you a little background information about me.

While I had a few brief vacations outside of the United States growing up, my extensive traveling did not really begin until college. Originally a film major at the University of Colorado in Boulder, I switched to international studies in order to get into a study abroad program in Belgium. My classes there fascinated me, and being able to hear opinions on international issues from students from all over the world really opened my eyes to the cultural differences that can sometimes prove a barrier to international development. After that, film was forever placed on the back burner as a future hobby, and I continued my education in international studies. After obtaining a B.A. in International Studies, I realized that the economics side of international studies most captivated me, as it seemed to be the driving force behind the functioning of the entire world, yet I felt I had only scratched the surface of understanding what exactly international economics entailed. I needed to conquer this thing called economics, and to do so I decided to attend the University of Denver’s Graduate School of International Studies to obtain a master’s degree in Global Finance, Trade, and Economic Integration. And conquer I did, learning about the many dimensions of international economics such as inflation, exchange rates, fiscal policy, trade, taxation, labor migration, banking, capitalism, liberalism, and Marxism, to name a few.

Handing out school supplies in rural Tibet

Moreover, during one of my summers off, I traveled to Tibet with a non-profit called the Tibetan Village Project, and visited rural villages to assess their educational, healthcare, and income-generating needs. This trip, combined with my economics education, strengthened my belief that one cannot apply a blanket strategy of development to every country in the world and thus reaffirmed my opinion that top-down development approaches often do not reach the people they are intending to help. “Grassroots development or bust!”, I told myself. And my interest in microfinance was born, although at this point I didn’t call it that, because I didn’t know what microfinance was.

After graduation, I moved to San Francisco, where I got a job in finance at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. While I learned a lot there, I wanted to refocus my career towards international endeavors, and I quit my job, bought a one-way ticket to Thailand, and took off to explore the world and see what I could do to help impoverished people in less developed countries. During my year of traveling all over Southeast Asia, I learned about this thing called microfinance, and was elated to learn that there was something out there that combined all my piecemeal ideas on how best to achieve economic development into one malleable strategy that could be molded to serve the needs of whatever community it was intending to help.

Local Man in the Baliem Valley of Papua, Indonesia

When I returned from my journey, I immediately went to work looking for a way to get involved in microfinance, and spent the first few months of 2011 in Peru, volunteering as an Economic Development and Microfinance Monitor for SKIP, a small non-profit in Trujillo. There I assisted families in obtaining small business loans, helped manage a community income generation project through shoe and jewelry-making, and performed research that contributed to helping families open their first bank accounts. However, my extended time in Southeast Asia gave me a soft spot for the region, and I decided to leave Peru and try to refocus my energies on Southeast Asia. Browsing the internet for opportunities in Asia, I stumbled across Vittana. I had never heard of a microfinance non-profit that specializes in student loans, and this idea seemed brilliant to me, as it combined microfinance with what I believe to be the root cause of poverty: lack of education.

I have only been in the Philippines for 3 days, and already I am amazed at the positive attitude of everyone I meet. In fact, I am not sure how people’s faces don’t get sore from so much smiling. I think I am going to like it here (sore face-muscles notwithstanding!). During my 6 months as a Vittana Fellow in the Philippines, I am looking forward to gaining a greater understanding of microfinance in practice and I hope to help communities in the Philippines to establish a student loan framework, so that hard-working people here have the opportunity to obtain a better future for themselves and their families. At the end of my fellowship, I plan to seek a microfinance-related job either in SE Asia or in the United States, in order to continue my goal of improving the lives of people who lack the opportunity to do so on their own.

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From Ithaca to Illimani

by bzorner on November 1, 2011

in fellows, Vittana

Ithaca is a small town, home to around 30,000 people and Cornell University- which is situated on a hill above Cayuga Lake in Central New York. I spent the past four years studying Economics, Philosophy, and Psychology in this frigid island of academia far away from my home in sunny San Diego, California. During my last year of university I walked daily to class through the Eddy Street Gate and read the inscription: “So enter that daily thou mayest become more learned and thoughtful. So depart that daily thou mayest become more useful to thy country and to mankind.” Like most university students, I spent a good portion of my senior year wondering how the intellectual capital I had developed could be of use to the world. My studies in economics and my experiences living in New York (although far from NYC) made me curious about the financial industry, while time spent studying in both India and Argentina endowed me with an interest in developing economies. I also had an itch to make use of my basic proficiency in Spanish, and the desire to satisfy a propensity for concerning myself with social inequity (after all, I am a philosopher as well). These interests, combined with help from the Cornell Microfinance Club and help from friends who had worked in microfinance, eventually led me to discover Vittana and the opportunity to become a Vittana Fellow.
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View of Illimani from my desk at Emprender's Avenida Buenos Aires office.

Due to the antecedent chain of events, I am now sitting in Emprender’s Avenida Buenos Aires office in La Paz, Bolivia gazing at the beautiful backdrop of Illimani. Vittana has chosen to partner with Emprender in order to facilitate the construction of a student loan product in their La Paz and El Alto branches. Emprender was chosen as one of the first Bolivian partners of Vittana due to their impeccable reputation and dedication to quality service of clients, going beyond microloans to include a whole range of services. I was recently able to experience such dedication firsthand while attending the opening of their El Tejar “consultorio medico”, which is a small medical clinic in which clients and non-clients alike can receive free health care and treatment, with Emprender absorbing the cost. This assists clients in that, while health care in Bolivia is cheap, it is not free. The type of services provided by the Emprender “consultorio” would cost patients 15-20 Bolivianos elsewhere ($2-3, showing that even the smallest amount of cash heavily impacts the lives of these clients).
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Doctor Patricia Mariaca celebrating the opening of what is to be her new office at Emprender’s free clinic!
It is this type of service to the community and focus on overall well-being that sets Emprender apart from other microfinance institutions in Bolivia. As part of this focus on the overall well-being of the community, Emprender has grasped the opportunity to partner with Vittana to develop a loan product that will help a developing country cultivate its youth in a healthy and productive manner- through higher education.
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Emprender's Avenida Buenos Aires office.

While part of my work here will be to show that a student loan product is viable for Emprender through market research and a pilot launch of the product in La Paz and El Alto, it does not take much more than a quick look around to see that the youth of La Paz are yearning for such a product. When I first arrived I needed a refresher course in Spanish, so I went to a local language institute to ask for classes after work. They ended up needing an English instructor, so we arranged an exchange where I would teach English in exchange for Spanish courses. In my first day of training I sat in on a class taught by a more experienced instructor. His class was supposed to have 6 students; only 3 showed up. I asked why it was that so many students would miss a class, and was told that this occurs often because students have to work or have school. Missing class is a terribly inefficient use of a student’s time, as classes cost around 17 Bolivianos per hour, and if they miss class they are still charged. I can’t imagine that any student would be making more than 17 Bolivianos per hour ($2.50 per hour) considering the government sets minimum wage at 860 Bolivianos per month which is only 5.40 Bolivianos per hour ($0.77 per hour). About 30 minutes into class, a fourth student showed up (I was told this also happens often). This student, Valentina, was late because she had to work. Valentina informed me that she is taking English classes because she is also a student at a local institute that trains young people to be ticketing agents at the El Alto airport. They need to know English so that they can communicate with foreigners who arrive at the airport. However, to pay for all of these courses she has to work, and so she is often tardy to or absent from class. Clearly, student loan products are needed for individuals with these sorts of aspirations and financial constraints. The sooner Valentina learns English, the sooner she can start working, and the sooner she can acquire a better quality of life. Valentina will also help the next foreigner who comes to the El Alto airport with slightly rusty Spanish skills to experience a better quality of travel ; ).
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A Bit on Bolivian Culture

Within the first week of my arrival (6/13/2011) I was lucky enough to be able to participate in the following festivals:
Tiwanaku

Bolivian woman and her daughter raise their hands as the sun rises during the Aymara New Year celebration at Tiwanaku. This new year Vittana and Emprender begin to bring hope to young people's dreams in Bolivia. (6/21/2011)

Festival del Gran Poder

Traditional Bolivian dancers, part of the day long "Festival del Gran Poder". (6/18/2011)

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High Hopes in the Philippines

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by Stefan Tangen on October 31, 2011

in fellows

Hot, humid, busy, loud and exciting are good words to describe my experience stepping off the plane at the airport in the Philippines. My destination, you ask? A tiny, rural province called Misamis Occidental on the island of Mindanao, the second largest island of the Philippines.

Everywhere I looked, constant business activity was taking place and although I was a little loopy from traveling for two days it was very evident that this was an energetic and vigorous place. As I was driven to Plaridel, my final destination where I’d be living for the next 5 months, I noticed even on rural country roads and in small hamlets of houses that there were always people working away.

Filipino street food...delicious

Like many impoverished people of the world, Filipinos use every resource they have available to make a life for themselves. They use every scrap of food, plastic or metal to make this meal, patch that hole or cook that fish. Not only was it immediately apparent that Filipinos are resourceful, but also that they must be the happiest  and friendliest people on Earth. Every person that I meet, from the cab driver in Manila or the five Filipina ladies I live with in Plaridel, goes out of their way to accommodate and be as hospitable as possible. They are easy to laugh and joke with even in times of hardship or plight. This is a far cry from my hometown of Seattle where most people in the street hesitate to look you in the eye and are very reluctant to say hello to strangers.

After getting to know some of the people here I also noticed how dedicated, honest and sincere they are. People truly care about one another. Whether it is a beggar on the street, a co-worker or a family member Filipinos go out of their way to help one another. I constantly hear Filipinos referring to one another as brothers and sisters even though they are talking about people they do not even know.

A Filipino rice field. Like many places in Asia, rice is a staple and is consumed at nearly every single meal.

The microfinance institution that Vittana has partnered with here is the embodiment of that Filipino spirit. They are called Paglaum Multi-Purpose Cooperative or PMPC. Paglaum means “hope” in the local dialect.  PMPC provides services to the community with the goal of lifting people out of poverty. I will be spending my time in the Philippines working out of their offices and living with their employees (the five Filipinas I mentioned earlier).

PMPC started as the livelihood arm of Paglaum Community Development Foundation which is focused on “child development through a holistic approach.” The cooperative grew from 35 members and initial capital of 2,000 pesos ($500 dollars)  when it started in 1992. It now serves 30,000 members with capital of 100 million pesos ($2.5 million dollars).

The cooperative’s work with Kiva over the past few years is a good example of their dedication to service of the community. Through that partnership they have been able to provide low interest micro loans to assist entrepreneurs such as farmers, grocers and butchers to better their businesses and improve their standard of living.

A customer being helped by the always helpful staff at a Paglaum Multi-Purpose Cooperative office in Misamis Occidental.

Here at Vittana we hope to build off of that success and expand into education to empower students in this rural area. By bringing low interest student loans to this area of the Philippines we hope to make higher education attainable and assist people that need education most. Low interest student loans of this nature are quite rare in Misamis Occidental and in most places in the developing world. It is truly an honor to be able to offer a service that is in such high demand to this hard working, dedicated and under-served population.

I have no doubt that we have an amazing partner in Paglaum. While working with Kiva in less than 3 years PMPC has given loans to over 7000 entrepreneurs worth nearly 2 million dollars. Vittana’s goal to reach 1 million student loans by 2015 is definitely within reach if we continue to partner with folks as focused and ambitious as Paglaum.

Stay tuned until next time to see how things are going in the Philippines and click here to check out some of our students.

And the winner is....my first Filipino beauty pageant. The winner received $500 dollars cash prize and a year of free college tuition

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Fellows of the Month: Charlie Gale, Kim Munn and Stefan Tangen

by Sophie on October 7, 2011 · 2 comments

in fellows

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Over the past few months three Vittana fellows, Charlie Gale, Kim Munn and Stefan Tangen, have been hard at work helping our three newest partners in the Philippines launch their student loan programs. Charlie, an academic exploring the theoretical components of international education, is currently enrolled in the Teachers College at Columbia University. He has been working with CCT to launch the E-Loan (Education Loan). Kim is an avid international traveler who has worked at the Federal Reserve Bank and at a microfinance institution in Peru. She is currently at ASKI where they are launching the LEAP Product (Loan for Educational Advancement Program). Stefan Tangen, who has extensive experience working in Samoa, has been hard at work launching the SEAL Product (Student Educational Assistance Loan) at PMPC.

We could not have launched these student loan programs without the help of our great fellows. As the second semester begins in late October, we are expecting to see many Filipino students on Vittana from these three partners along with those from our first partner in the Philippines, NWTF.

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Beauty, Redefined

by Patrick Huang on September 9, 2011

in fellows

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“Loving a beautiful child is easy, it is loving a not-so-beautiful child that is hard.”
- Shake Hands with the Devil, a movie about the genocide in Rwanda.
Before departing for Rwanda, I made a point to learn about the country, especially its most recent history. When I arrived and started interacting with Rwandans, our conversations have almost always included a reference to the genocide. These interactions have not only taught me more about Rwanda’s culture and history, but also left an indelible mark on me.
It is no surprise that Rwanda is known as the country of a thousand hills- the first thing you notice about this country are the hills. Green, rolling hills as far as the eye can see with tiny houses and buildings attempting, unsuccessfully, to occupy the vast and ever-expansive landscape. The hills have even integrated themselves into everyday speech. Rwandans, in the absence of actual street signs, reference hills rather than street names when giving directions, e.g. “Go up the hill and take a left to get to the supermarket.” And from my house on Muhima Road, if you go down the hill from the central roundabout, take a right, and go up the next hill, you will arrive at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Center.
Although I have visited a few Holocaust museums in the states and a German concentration camp, this experience was a harsh reminder that the cry for ‘Never Again’ is bold and righteous, yet still remains to be realized in the world today.

"Work Makes You Free" - Gates at the entrance of Dachau

For those who are unfamiliar with the genocide in Rwanda, you can check out Wikipedia but in the meantime, here’s a quick primer:  In April 1994, About 1 million Tutsis and “Tutsi supporters”, or 1 out of every 5 people in Rwanda at the time, were systematically murdered in a matter of only 100 days by the Interahawre (local militia armed with machetes, axes, guns and the like) and even by their own friends, neighbors, and family members. That comes out to 10,000 murdered every day, 400 every hour, 7 every minute. Besides the total number of victims, what shocked me the most was that around the same number of people participated in the genocide.
The numbers are shocking and palpable. As I walked down the stairs from the center, I was immediately surrounded by mass graves. Graves that hold 220,000 victims of the one million that perished during the genocide.

Mass Graves

I visited the center on a Sunday in mid-April. April is the end of the rainy season in Rwanda and like clockwork, the rain arrived in sheets to pound the center for about an hour. What surprised me the most were the many groups of people in their Sunday best who despite the rain, were led by pastors to hold sermons in remembrance of loved ones.

The center itself provides a historical account of the genocide from the colonial imperialism that divided Hutus from Tutsis, to the brutal acts perpetuated on women and children, to the aftermath that still haunts Rwandans today. As I walked through the memorial center, I was overwhelmed with questions and emotions. One book about the Rwandan genocide quoted Stalin who said, “One death is a tragedy; one million deaths is just a statistic.” That day, I started to understand the many “one death” tragedies that made up the one million who were methodically and brutally murdered here in Rwanda.

Afterwards, I sat for awhile, trying to reconciled the country’s immense beauty with one of the darkest acts that man has committed.

Only a few minutes passed by when a staff member of the center came up to me and started a conversation. After welcoming me to the center, he shared his story as a survivor and how he lost his loved ones during the genocide. I came away experiencing the friendliness that is representative of most, if not all, Rwandans that I have met. Despite the genocide, the people of Rwanda are friendly, proud of their country and value community above all. Apart from the random strangers who want to start a conversation with me (most likely because as a Chinese-American, I stick out like a pale, sore thumb), it is customary for Rwandans – both males and females – to greet each other by embracing much like Europeans do. When new people are present, they also start a conversation to welcome them. Umuganda is also practiced in all communities, rural and urban, on the last Saturday of every month in which the people come together to clean the surrounding area, resolve disputes, and help those in need.

Marilyn Monroe probably wasn’t referring to countries and cultures when she said, “Imperfection is beauty” but for me, I know that I’m in one of the most beautiful countries: Rwanda.
For more about the genocide in Rwanda, you can check out the movie Hotel Rwanda, We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families (a book about the genocide and the aftermath), and Ghosts of Rwanda (a PBS Frontline special).

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Quotation of the Week: Or One More Reason Why I Love My Job

by Sophie on September 1, 2011 · 1 comment

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“Problems can be opportunities when the right people come together”

– Robert South

August is the reason I’ll be popping a bottle of champagne on Friday, and starting off Labor Day Weekend with more reason to celebrate than just the extra day off.  August blew all of my job satisfaction expectations out of the water.  In short, August was record breaking.

Vittana tripled in August.  While ordinarily we experience a steady monthly influx of students, that number increased by a factor of three.  As office coordinator, one of my roles is to see that every one of those students is web-ready and on the site for you, the lender, to provide the opportunity to make their educational aspirations a reality.

Now, I’ve worn a variety of hats in my short twenty-four years, and if my workload had tripled as a breakfast chef when I worked at a small inn (26 three-course orders turning into 88?) I would probably be coming home close to tears everyday and blaming my sniffles on onions.  But when I was a breakfast chef at a small inn, I did my work alone and worked with onions.  Now?  I have a full team of Vittana staff, lenders, volunteers, and MFI partners making me want to stand up and cheer instead of lose my cool.  And what do we get to do?  We help provide the opportunity to make dreams come true.

That’s why I want to use this quotation of the week post as an excuse to thank each and every person that made August possible; that makes Vittana possible.  Without our lenders, supporters, donors, volunteers, MFI partners, outstanding staff members, fans, and of course, students, we wouldn’t be where we are today.  We tripled our number of students in August, and those students not only made it onto the site, but many have already been funded and can now complete their education.  That’s huge, and it will bring a smile to my face long after the Labor Day Weekend is through.

This is an instance where the right people came together, and we provided three times the opportunities than ever before.  Thank you, Vittana community.  We salute you.

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Education: The Key to Life

by Patrick Huang on August 31, 2011 · 2 comments

in Vittana

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“A Key”
“The Greatest Thing”
“The First Priority”
“Opens Your Mind”
“Empowerment”
“Life”

These are just some of the answers that students at various schools across Kigali gave to the question, “What does education mean to you?” As I spoke with students about education, I started to reflect on my own choice to continue my education at the University of Michigan this upcoming fall. In my own video response to the same question about education, I said that education means sacrifice. A few years back, I was driven by my “holy discontent” to pursue higher education. To prepare myself, I read about

how other students have taken the plunge to pursue graduate school. Besides sacrificing their current income to incur tens and even hundreds of thousands in student loan debt, they talked about the personal sacrifices. At the time, I knew little of the enormity and scale of these sacrifices. But just like these students did, I made those same sacrifices in the coming years as I spent hours upon hours studying for the GMAT and writing (and rewriting and rewriting..) my applications in hotel rooms (after long days working with my client) and coffee shops.

Tea and Me

More importantly, I sacrificed my personal time that I could have spent with those close to me. And like the other business school applicants, I was making this personal choice consciously with no guarantee of return. But true sacrifice, as the definition of the word dictates, is surrendering something of value (my time, effort, money, and life) to gain something more desirable: the education to achieve my goals. And from my conversations with more than a hundred students from six different schools and reading more than 500 student survey responses, there is no question in my mind that they understand what education means.

Although all of the students have inspired me with their passion to pursue higher education, I have been especially motivated by my experiences with the students at the Akilah Institute.

Welcome to Akilah

A two-year vocational college for women in Rwanda, the Akilah Institute started around two years ago to develop leaders intent on transforming customer care in Rwanda’s rapidly growing hospitality/tourism industry. Some of my natural affinity towards Akilah probably comes from my focus on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in my former life as a consultant. As a CRM consultant, I collaborated with large corporations to shift their operations and strategy from an internal, product perspective to a customer’s perspective or in industry-speak, “customer-centricity”. From my experiences, I could foresee both the challenges that these young leaders will face and the enormous opportunities for them to transform customer experiences in Rwanda.

My conversations with the students at Akilah, however, are the real reason for my continued drive towards creating a student loan market in Rwanda. In countries like Rwanda, financial institutions often perceive students as a ‘high risk’ investment mainly because the student loan market does not exist and little to no information is available. From our focus group sessions, student surveys, and student interviews, however, the students would wholeheartedly disagree with their ‘risky’ status. With Urwego Opportunity Bank (UOB LINK), Vittana’s partner organization in Rwanda, we intend to prove that students in Rwanda and across the world have the same potential and drive to achieve their dreams.

Classroom at Akilah

My most recent interview with Jackline Kirabo, a student at the Akilah Institute, leaves no question in my mind as to whether student loans will have a positive impact on students and the country as a whole. As Jackline proclaimed, education is truly the key to your life. A life that, with education, you can call your own.

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The Path to Rwanda

by lmonroe on August 29, 2011

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The beginning of my journey that has lead me to the “land of a thousand hills,” Rwanda, began two years ago.  It began with many casual conversations with friends, family, and mentors about how I might fulfill a deep, perhaps overly idealistic desire to change the world.

Tyler dancing in Botswana

Maybe I’ve been influenced by my parents, both of who work in the nonprofit sector.

My older brother, Tyler, had been part of a graduate school team that worked in Botswana to prepare a business plan for a college-prep high school to position students to enter US and Western Europe universities. This was my first exposure to the post-secondary education issue in Africa.

Then two of my best friends, Oren and Kyle, volunteered to work at Agahozo-Shalom Village, a youth orphanage here in Rwanda.  Upon returning to Los Angeles they told me of their experiences and what they believed they had accomplished. Of significance to me and my journey was that they both related the desire of these high school students to continue their studies after leaving the village, but that these orphans were unable to continue due to the costs of attending school.

Oren and Kyle with students from Agahozo Shalom Youth Village

The Haitian earthquake and its aftermath moved me. It struck me that my career path, given my interest and experience in wilderness travel, might be as a disaster response professional. I volunteered with my local Red Cross, and trained as a Remote/Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician.  But it wasn’t until I had an informational interview with a volunteer with Ashoka, who turned me on to the idea of using my entrepreneurial talents — I started a tourism company in college — and micro-finance to help find solutions to global problems.
With this seed planted in my mind I thought back to the issue Oren, Kyle, and I had discussed a year earlier and began writing a business plan to implement a student micro-loan product to help the orphans of Rwanda.  It was during my research that I discovered Vittana and saw that they had beaten me to the punch in providing student loans — but had yet to expand into Rwanda.  It didn’t take me long to realize that my best option was to apply for a Fellowship and hope that I would be selected to be part of Vittana’s student loan product expansion into its first country in Africa, Rwanda. (Of course, if selected as a Fellow, I would have gone anywhere they needed me.)

Fellows Patrick and Luke with students from Akilah

So here I am living in Kigali, Rwanda helping to set up a student loan product. I am planning to visit the “youth village” my friends told me about two years ago.  My journey continues, but I’m getting closer to realizing my dream.
And, as I have been told many times, “change a life and you’ve changed the world.”

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Fellows of the Month: Patrick Huang and Luke Monroe

by Nick Cain on August 24, 2011

in Vittana

Post image for Fellows of the Month: Patrick Huang and Luke Monroe

For the past four months, Vittana Fellows Patrick Huang and Luke Monroe have been hard at work in Kigali, Rwanda. Patrick came to Vittana from a career as a management consultant at IBM. Luke is an entrepreneur at heart. He started a business while getting his bachelors degree at USC.

Working with Vittana partner Urwego Opportunity Bank, Patrick and Luke surveyed microfinance borrowers to gauge interest in a student loan product, coordinated the distribution of a student survey to almost 700 university and vocational school students, and facilitated in-depth focus groups at schools across Rwanda’s capital. It was Vittana’s most extensive market research effort to date and their analysis of the results was critical to the development of Vittana and Urwego’s soon-to-launch student loan pilot program. Thanks to Patrick and Luke’s outstanding work, Vittana is well on its way to taking the critical first step toward fulfilling the commitment we made last year at the Clinton Global Initiative: reaching 10,000 students in Sub Saharan Africa by 2015!

To acknowledge their outstanding work, Patrick and Luke have been named Vittana Fellows of the Month. Great job guys!

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