- guardian.co.uk,
Sarom Eng, 55, has five children. She perches on a wooden slatted bench in her village, Preytotung, in Battambang province, as she speaks about her business ventures. Family members, including her daughter and one of her five grandchildren, neighbours and animals mill around the garden that surrounds her small stilted wooden house as we talk. Lined up opposite the bench are huge plastic bags full of kapok fibres, which have been plucked from pods that hang from nearby ceiba trees, and are ready for sale.
Eng has developed a good seasonal business, buying the pods from farmers who have the trees on their land, and selling the kapok to companies that make mattresses and pillows. It has been funded through loans she's taken out from the Khum Chrey community-based microfinance organisation (CBMIFO). She's on her third or fourth loan now – the most recent for 1.5m Cambodian riel, about $370. She employs neighbours and family to help pluck and bag the kapok, and she expects to get a 50% rate of return when she sells her goods. "I've never had a problem with paying the money back. I usually pay back before I need to."
Read the full article and see more pictures at the Guardian here.
2 comments:
Oh my God, looking at those poor Khmer people with bare foots. I am feeling very bad to see poor Khmer people today with bare foots standing in front of the window of medical center.
Hun Sen and his CPP officials are very bad.
Not a medical center. This is a bank or a micro-finance loan center. Yes, I feel sorry for them, look like they are so poor and may be taken advantage of by these kinds of micro-finance companies. I know many had lost their land because of this kind of scheme. They can't repay their debts because the scheme is very predatory and charge exorbitant interest rates.
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