03-nam Ngan Group

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to 03-Nam Ngan Group, consisting of Thu Lê Thị, Nguyễn Ngô Thị, Thịnh Nguyễn Thị, Thu Lê Thị, Lan Phạm Thị, Hương Laị Thị, Cài Ngô Thị by Fund for Thanh Hoa Poor Women (TCVM), a partner of Save the Children in Viet Nam. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the 19 months of this loan, Fund for Thanh Hoa Poor Women (TCVM), a partner of Save the Children will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Dear Lender,

Thank you for supporting the Fund for Thanh Hoa Poor Women!

The Fund for Thanh Hoa Poor Women (FPW) is a relatively new partner to the Kiva platform, having posted its first loan in November 2008. Since then, FPW staff have worked diligently to integrate Kiva into their operations and we are happy to announce that FPW has recently been approved for active field partner status on Kiva! Expect to see an increase in FPW activity on Kiva.org over the next few months.

Since February 2009, I have been serving in Thanh Hoa as a Kiva Fellow, assisting FPW through this process. Now that I’m at the end of my fellowship, I would like to share a simple revelation. What I have discovered through meeting and speaking with the borrowers here is that although the current financial crisis may suggest otherwise, finance, and in this case microfinance, in Thanh Hoa, is not always that dramatic. I am not leaving here as expected, with hallmark stories of adversities conquered, but I have met real women and seen how these simple, elegant loans return to them a small but significant power.

The need and impact of micro loans is known to differ from borrower to borrower. FPW’s clients represent women with differing circumstances and vary in the degree to which their loans have impacted their life. This microfinance mosaic of users, uses and value is well represented by the women from Group 41 Quang Hung, one of the first groups that I visited in Thanh Hoa.

Ms. Vũ Thị Kim Chung is the leader of Group 41 Quang Hung Commune and represents one end of the spectrum. Ms. Chung, like most Vietnamese women, engages in multiple income producing activities. She is primarily a worker in Le Mon Industrial Zone, working 18-20 days a month, transporting fertilizer on and off train cars and earning a relatively high income of ~1.800.000 VND ($103 USD) per month. The work is hard and she sounds like someone who understands the weight of world finances when she states plainly that “it’s a job” and she’s grateful for it. Although her family could survive without any additional income, Ms. Chung still chose to take out a loan and increase her workload voluntarily to, on a good day, earn an additional ~60.000 VND ($3.50 USD) by selling fruit and raising animals.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have Ms. Hương Nguyễn Thị. Ms. Hương lives in the same commune as Ms. Chung but her economic position is quite different. Ordinarily, she works in her family’s woodworking shop and raises animals for resale. Together, the family is able to generate sufficient income. This past year, however, her family has faced extraordinary circumstances, with her eldest son (aged 4) falling ill with an ocular condition in April 2008. The family traveled to Hanoi for treatment, only to find that their son was too young to have the surgery. Although her son’s base medical expenses were covered by the government, the costs of transportation, accommodation and food were left to the family. Her previous loans from FPW and this most recent loan from Kiva have helped her and her family manage these sudden expenses.

Reflecting on the two loans above, Ms. Hương’s story is more akin to those you read in Muhammad Yunus’s books, but Ms. Chung’s story is the norm here at FPW. The loan has not saved her from starvation, homelessness or illness, but has simply given her the option to earn a little more. Though a seemingly small return on her investment, it represents her hard work and most importantly, access to the resources and right to earn it.

Thank you again for providing the capital to lend to women in Thanh Hoa! Please consider lending to one of the currently fundraising loans from FPW.

I had the opportunity to meet Ms. Le Thi Thu from 3-Nam Ngan this week during a borrower visit to the Nam Ngan commune. She took the time to tell me about her business and I would like to share an update with you.

Ms. Thu built her home two years ago. The front yard has been turned into a breakfast shop. Ms. Thu’s specialty is Bun Bo Hue (a noodle soup originating from Hue, a town in Center Vietnam). The shop opens at 4:30am in the morning and closes at 9am. Afterwards, Ms. Thu cleans up the shop and begins preparing ingredients for the next day. She sells each bowl of Bun Bo Hue for 15,000 VND (0.84 cents) and can sell 35-40 bowls a day. Her husband helps her with the business by parking cars for the customers. They have two children. The eldest son is 24 years old and the youngest is 20 years old. He is currently in the 12th grade. She said that she chose to open the business because it kept her close to home.

Another member of the group, also named Ms. Le Thi Thu, owns a mechanic shop in front of herhome. Her family fixes machines that are used for farming. The family can make a profit of 5,000,000 VND ($280 USD) each month. Ms. Thu has been a mechanic for 10 years. She learned this skill by going to school for 2 years. Prior to starring this business, she worked at a company for 15 years. Two of her children, 23 and 20 years old, are also mechanics. Her eldest son is 25-years old and stays at home because he has an illness.

Ms. Pham Thi Lan used to be a seamstress. Now, she sells breakfast at the local market and makes a profit of 1,500,000 VND each month ($84 USD). She has a 10-year-old son who is in the 5th grade and a 4-year-old daughter who is attending kindergarten. Her husband works in construction.

Thank you for lending to members of 3-Nam Ngan Group! Please consider joining our new lending team, Fans of the Thanh Hoa Fund for Poor Women, to support more entrepreneurs in Thanh Hoa! To view a list of the currently fundraising loans from FPW, click here.

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I will be serving as a Kiva fellow from June through August at the Thanh Hoa Fund for Poor Women. Lack of capital is the most common challenge for the poor households in this area of Vietnam. FPW provides client-oriented financial services to a large number of poor women who have ability to work but lack loan capital and women who cannot access any formal finance services.

Read more about the Kiva Fellows’ experiences across the world on the Kiva Fellows Blog.