The situation unfolding in Kenya has received a lot of press attention lately, and for good reason (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7172103.stm).
We have reached out to our local microfinance (MFI) partners in Kenya (see http://www.kiva.org/about/partners/). The situation on the ground appears to vary widely from community to community. However, one consistent report is that business is not operating as usual; most MFI operations have been interrupted or stopped altogether in the last week, whether due to imminent danger in their region or the general disruption in daily life caused by turbulence elsewhere. Thankfully, as far as we know, none of our partner MFI staff have been hurt. Unfortunately, due to the magnitude of the situation, we anticipate that many entrepreneurs will have been displaced, hurt, or otherwise adversely affected.
Please be patient as this situation unfolds. We expect possible disruptions in our Kenya MFI partners’ operations as the staff on the ground recover.
If you’d like more information about what you can do to help, take a look at the International Red Cross and World Food Program sites - http://www.icrc.org/ and http://www.wfp.org/english/ respectively. Please note that Kiva does not have official partnerships with either of the above orgs.
