A letter from Dorice to the Kiva Community

July 8, 2010

By: Jenny Jin

Jenny Jin, KF11 – Kenya

Dorice is the newest Kiva assistant coordinator for KADET, the Kenyan microfinance partner that I’ve been working with through my Kiva Fellowship. Dorice is new to KADET’s Kiva Operations team but she’s been with KADET for years, and has been a real source of inspiration and fun for the staff and past Kiva Fellows with her passion to help others and her social personality. A week ago, I asked Dorice whether she’d be interested to introduce herself to the Kiva community on the blog, and she wrote a wonderful letter that I’m posting below.

My name is Dorice Lucy Anyango. I’m a Kiva assistant coordinator in KADET Microfinance based in the Nairobi office. I joined the KADET Kiva team in June, and I would like to share the story of myself, and my work for KADET and Kiva.

I am a cateress by profession, and through my life I wanted to work in welfare institutions. In the year 2005, I joined KADET where I was motivated by their slogan when I first read it: To empower community and give hope. I worked in the Hospitality Department, on housekeeping and ensuring the offices are clean, serving tea to every person of the firm and visitors to the firm, and occasionally receptionist operations. My major source of motivation towards hospitality was to ensure that every person, regardless of race, age, qualifications, is well-served within my capacity.

In the year 2007, I was given a confirmation letter to join KADET full-time to become the assistant administrator in the hospitality department. In 2010, I was given the opportunity to join the Operations department as an assistant to the KADET Kiva Team.

I now work on writing Kiva journals for KADET clients, and helping some of our branches to post client profiles on Kiva. I get the information for journals and Kiva profiles from the credit officers who have personally interviewed the clients. I work in the head office where I don’t see many clients myself, and when I read their stories from the loan forms, it touches me and as I type up their stories in my heart I am encouraging them. I can’t wait to meet them when I accompany loan officers in the field.When I learned about how Kiva works, I’m thankful and amazed for the step that Kiva lenders have taken to give money to people who they don’t personally know but from assessing their business on Kiva. That motivates my heart and makes me desire to work hard on giving the best information that I can on who the clients are. When I work on journals, I think about what are the information that the lender wants to know, because I know that this is a source of motivation for them. This act of lending is not very common in Kenya to find people who give assistance freely, this is an act that should be treated with much respect, and I really respect Kiva lenders.

In our client’s journals, we ask clients what their hopes and dreams are. My personal hopes and dreams is to be an inspirational leader in the community with the vision to help others.

I come from a low living standard background, whereby I was brought up by my grandmother, while my mother was away working and my father was absent. My background instilled compassion in my heart, and I don’t want to see any child suffer. I worked in a hospital for 6 years and one year in a boarding school. In the village where I’ve come from, and in other villages, I see old men and old grandmothers where their children have left to other countries or have died, or whose grandchildren have gotten lost in the cities. They are sober in mind but in old age are not capable to care for themselves.

My dream is to eventually build a home that can provide for children, for those who are disabled, and for those of old age.

Thank you! I am open to hearing your views and comments.

Dorice