Be a Kiva Fellow!!

July 8, 2009

By: JD Bergeron

Have you ever wondered who is out there in the field, taking Kiva videos like this:

In many cases, it's a Kiva Fellow.

Kiva Fellows are a crucial part of making Kiva work, working with Kiva's Field Partners on the ground, and meeting with Kiva Entrepreneurs.

We are now accepting applications for the next group of Kiva Fellows, to head into the field in October 2009.

The Kiva Fellowship is ideal for someone who:

Is interested in a career in microfinance or international development
Would like to get more involved by volunteering for Kiva
Would love to experience living in another country and giving back at the same time

Currently, we're particularly looking for:

people who can speak Tagalog, Spanish, Bahasa Indonesian, or Swahili
people with a background in technology who can assist our Field Partners by building them tools using Kiva's API
people with travel experience in developing countries who want a meaningful reason to stay put for 3 or 4 months
people who are excited to go to some of Kiva's more challenging locations like Ramallah in the West Bank, Nigeria, the island of Mindanao in the Philippines, Liberia, South Sudan and Burundi

A Kiva Fellowship is a life-changing experience for you and for the entrepreneurs that you'll meet, and your host Field Partner enormously benefits from your generous donation of time and energy.

The next class will be training at the Kiva HQ office in San Francisco September 21 - 25, and departing for our Field Partners in early October. This is a highly competitive program, so don't leave your application to the last minute - we want to hear from you!

Learn more about the Kiva Fellows program here, and submit your application here.

And for the ultimate insight into what it's like being a Kiva Fellow, take a look at Kieran Ball's video "A Fistful of Dollars", which he shot during his fellowship with AMK in Cambodia.