Nuru International is delighted to announce a new partnership with Kiva, a non-profit organization which connects potential lenders to people without access to traditional banking systems.
Our partnership with Kiva is based on a shared goal to alleviate poverty and this shared ideology: “We envision a world where all people – even in the most remote areas of the globe – hold the power to create opportunity for themselves and others.”1
Nuru works with small-scale farmers living in remote, rural areas who are experiencing episodic hunger—or a “hunger season” in the months prior to seasonal harvests. By extending an agriculture input loan of seeds and fertilizer to farmers, Nuru helps them increase their crop yields in order to have enough food for the farmer’s family and a surplus to sell for income. Agricultural input loans are a vetted means of increasing household food security, generating income and ultimately enabling families to lift themselves out of extreme poverty.
Since issuing its first agricultural input loan in 2009, Nuru has disbursed 15,213 loans of seed and fertilizer to farmers in Kenya. The final report for the 2012 long rains harvest celebrated that 96.8% of Nuru members repaid their loan and Nuru members experienced an average 123% increase in crop yield from the previous year.
Currently, Nuru offers farm inputs on loan for the long rains planting season with the expectation that farmers complete loan repayment after harvest time. Scaling its program to reach additional farmers creates cash flow challenges for the organization because all inputs are distributed at a single period during the year. Funding from Kiva lenders will cover the gap so Nuru can continue to reach an increasing number of farmers every year.
100% of every dollar donors lend on Kiva goes directly towards funding loans.
We invite you to be a part of our expansion by funding a loan to a Nuru farmer. In addition, once your loan is repaid, you will receive Kiva Credit that can be “recycled” back into the program, giving you the unique opportunity of funding multiple farmers using that same initial loan.
Thank you for supporting our vision to create a world where people living in extreme poverty can make meaningful choices to improve their lives in a sustainable way.