Just outside of my office at BancoFie is a poster that caught my eye on my first day of work as a Vittana Fellow. It says:“La Paz no es un obyecto encontrado por casualidad. Es el producto de la igualidad entre los hombres.” – -“Peace is not an object found [...]
The other day, I came across a what seemed like a strange clause in the policy for ASKI and Vittana’s pilot Loan for Educational Development Program (LEAP): Only third and fourth year students would qualify for a loan. I found myself wondering, what kind of impact are we making when [...]
We’re floored on a daily basis by students who have struggled against all odds to finish their education, lenders who time and again come back to change yet another person’s life, and Fellows who dedicate a portion of their own lives to bringing microloans to more students in developing countries. [...]
My time spent eating balut and riding in overcrowded tricycle taxis is coming to a close. After five months of being in the field I will return back to the United States of America and begin the next phase of my life. I pray that all the work we have [...]
As I sit here on the day before Thanksgiving, what comes to mind is the over 250 students on Vittana right now who are poised to transform their lives by continuing their education. Whether it’s Omar Ahmad‘s desire to become a civil engineer in Jordan or Lidia Severina Aban‘s goal [...]
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 [...]
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… Since the moment I [...]
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 [...]
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. Maybe I’ve been [...]
Here is a short compilation of graduates telling how Vittana loans changed their lives. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M63TTSbeocg[/youtube]