Kiva Motivation Statement

Applying for the Kiva Fellows program has been a long time coming. I first heard about microcredit in 2005 and later about Kiva in 2006. At the time I was an economics student, a teacher and a community advocate. I loved all of these endeavors and the microfinance programs of which I read seemed to fit perfectly with my dreams for future employment. Unfortunately, my resources and skills were not sufficient for me to take advantage of the Kiva Fellows program.
Therefore, I focused on other contributions and personal enrichment. It was my hope that these actions would benefit Kiva and subsequently enhance my performance when I became a fellow. In 2006 I began my Spanish studies in earnest with an intensive Spanish course and gained a high level of proficiency. In 2007 I wrote my undergraduate thesis “Credit Markets for the Poor [in the USA]” and proposed the standardization of loan applications to reduce borrower confusion. In 2008 I worked with Kiva as a member of the Spanish translation team and began full-time work as a fiduciary with my current employer. More recently, in 2009, I began taking accounting courses in order to become a certified public accountant. I have completed all the courses and am currently studying for the tests. Finally, over the entire period I advertised the website to friends and made loans to aspiring entrepreneurs. I even made a small personal loan to the custodian at my work place in 2008. I worked with him on budgeting and received installment payments.**
Now that I am an experience professional, my dream is that the Kiva Fellowship will serve as a stepping stone into a life of international service in the financial education and business. Through the program I expect to obtain an basic understanding of the inner workings of microfinance, gain contacts with international entities and improve my Spanish skills. All the while, I hope to collaborate with entrepreneurs and institutional staff to use our technical skills within the confines of available resources to make each business as efficient and viable as possible.
**Dates are approximate to provide a level of clarity to the sentence structure. Also, the loan to the custodian resulted in a 35% loss.

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!