What is microfinance?: A view from the field

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They were village women in braids, highland hats and tiny pumps. Some even had babies slung to their backs. But they all made their way about the makeshift soccer pitch at pace, kicking around a half-deflated ball. We — of hiking shoes, branded outdoor clothing and little to weigh us down – were getting our butts kicked.

Pick Up Soccer Game with Ecuadorian Microcredit Group / Flickr photo by uncorneredmarket

We had just come from a mountaintop meeting between borrowers and loan officers from Espoir, an Ecuadoran microfinance field partner of Kiva. The borrowers’ homes were tucked in the hills of southern Ecuador in a little village, the road to which was often washed out and impassable.

But this day was a dry one and the women invited us all – the loan officers, a Kiva Fellow and us, the photographers – to see their village. What we didn’t expect was that they would beat the breath out of us on a makeshift soccer pitch perched along rolling fields at over 10,000 feet.

For us, this was another glimpse of the human side of the developing world – and into a growing practice called microfinance.

Continue reading this article @ Uncornered Market