A Kiva entrepreneur goes global
Since Kiva started, I had always dreamed of seeing a loan come full circle in the sense that an entrepreneur I had funded would eventually be able to sell wares to me or my friends. There are lots of sites which help to make fair trade goods available to the international community such as Ten Thousand Villages or Trade As One, but none of these were connected directly with any entrepreneurs on Kiva. The best example I had to date was Kilama George requesting a home loan which he would pay for with bracelets he made for the Invisible Children project (sold here in the US).
Today, Kakeda Sun is breaking the mold by selling kramas from Cambodia online. She’s doing so with the help of a site called Ahkun.org started by a former Kiva Fellow from Brooklyn. On the site you can choose between blue and white kramas or orange and red kramas. (Krama’s are Cambodian scarfs which are used for everything from skirts to headbands). For the full story on Kakeda and her product, check out this video from Ahkun:
Though the kramas sell for $15 online, it’s really interesting that you could buy one directly from the entrepreneur for 44 cents if you happen to be in the Chroy Ompel Village. Sanjaya (the former Kiva Fellow who started Ahkun) is being pretty open about the cost discrepancy on the product page and has a complete breakdown of the Ahkun costs on the site. (He’s paying a 31 cent premium on each krama and not looking to profit from the venture.) However, it probably does more than a loan or a monthly wage to help demonstrate the disparity between costs in our communities and those living in the poorest regions of the world.