:Title:    Kiva at LiA!
:Author:   Laura Toepfer
:Date:     Wed, 19 Mar 2008 23:37:33 PST
:URL:      http://www.ned.com/group/lia-global/news/12/

Hello, everyone!  My name is Laura Toepfer and I am the new Kiva Fellow working with Life in Africa.  Thank you to Peter Ndelo and to everyone who has made me feel very welcome here at the Kampala office.  (And hello, Gulu, and LiA USA!)  I am still trying to find my way around, and everyone is helping me a great deal.  I am beginning to feel at home here.

I will be here until July, working on writing journal entries for those who have received Kiva loans.  I will also try to make things with Kiva work more smoothly so that it is easier for LiA to disburse and pay back loans.  Kiva has asked all of its Fellows  to come up with a training for field partner staff in order for you to be able to use Kiva's resources to the fullest.  I will work with the staff here to figure out something that will be helpful.  And I have also been asked by Kiva to create some documents behind that you can all refer to.  What those documents will be depends upon what you need.

So that is my plan!  It may be that there are other things I can do to be helpful as well.

But I have some questions for all of you:

How have you used Kiva up to now?  
What has worked well?  
What has been confusing?
What would you like to know about Kiva?

Basically, is there anything you would like me to know about LiA and how you have worked with Kiva, whether good or bad.  Information about your experiences will be very helpful as I try to make the partnership between Kiva and LiA stronger.

Thank you, and I look forward to meeting all of you!

Yours,
Laura