Kenya > Kisumu Medical & Education Trust (K-MET)

About the Field Partner

Field Partner:	Kisumu Medical & Education Trust (K-MET)
Field Partner Risk Rating:	(Learn more)
Time On Kiva:	36 months
Kiva Entrepreneurs:	758
Total Loans:	$287,875
Delinquency Rate:	0.00%
Default Rate:	0.00%
Currency Exchange Loss Rate:	0.00%
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Kiva Fundraising Status

Fundraising Status:	Paused
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Other Information Sources

MIX Profile:	None
Network Affiliation:	None
Social Performance Reporting Level:	N/A
Consumer Protection Principles:	N/A
Field Partner Website:	View Website
Email Contact:	None

K-MET is a non - governmental reproductive health and development organization registered in the Republic of Kenya under the Trustees Act in 1996. The founders, mainly in the health profession, were moved by the suffering they witnessed at the community level in Kenya. This group conceptualized KMET in 1995, compelled by the adage “charity begins at home.”

KMET is driven by a vision of communities with accessible quality reproductive health services where every child is wanted with a mission to promote development in underserved communities through innovative health and education programs.

Currently KMET operates in five of the eight Kenyan provinces with an emphasis on post-abortion care, clinical services, home-based care, nutrition (as a component of home-based care, food security and outpatient therapeutic program for children less than 5 years), microfinance, youth-for-youth programmes and a safe motherhood initiative. The organization’s headquarters are in Kisumu City, but K-MET is renowned internationally, and the staff act as reproductive health consultants in several sub-Saharan African countries. K-MET also has a student and volunteer program that incorporates local Kenyan students as well as international students and volunteers.

As a community-led NGO, KMET offers a unique 5-step reproductive health intervention process that is upstream and innovative:

1. Identification of Systemic Gaps in Reproductive Health services

2. Identification of Available Local Resources

3. Education and Training of Appropriate Workforce

4. Development of Community and Professional Networks

5. Ensuring Project Sustainability

All these are guided by KMET’s Strategic Plan (2007 – 2010).

Microfinance at K-MET:

To ensure sustainability of her community-based health and development programs, KMET initiated the Revolving Loan Fund in 2004 (with funding from Planned Parenthood Federation of America - PPFA), a creative microfinance initiative that has enabled more than 450 community-based volunteers and private service providers to access loans, allowing them to serve over 4000 underserved community members in Western and Eastern regions of Kenya. Further support was received from KIVA from 2006.

The revolving loan fund is available to community-based service providers as incentives for them to continue their essential work as volunteers in their villages. These providers have used the loans to initiate, improve and or expand their income generating activities and help to alleviate poverty within their communities thus improving their economic empowerment. HIV/AIDS orphans and vulnerable children under their care have also benefited in terms of the improved availability of the basic needs.

K-MET Integrated Community Health Centre (KMET Complex)

KMET strives to have all its programs sustainable and is undergoing a capital campaign for its own Community Integrated Health Centre. This centre will offer a one-stop facility for integrated health services to the underserved communities in Kisumu. When completed, KMET Complex will embody the Integration of reproductive health into the core business of development, which experts see as an important part of the process of achieving the vision of a healthy society. Construction of the complex is currently underway and the ground floor, which will house a community bank in the microfinance program, is set to open by December 2009.

To learn more about K-MET see www.kmet.co.ke. Join the K-MET lending team here: "K-MET Fans" .