Chantha Bo

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Chantha Bo by MAXIMA Mikroheranhvatho Co., Ltd. in Cambodia. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 12 months, MAXIMA Mikroheranhvatho Co., Ltd. will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Chantha had just taken her sister’s children for a walk when we arrived at her home in Muk Kampoul district, a rural area approximately fifteen kilometers from Phnom Penh, but her husband Dy was at home and was happy to provide us with an update on their loan with Kiva. Dy explained that with the $500 loan they received from Kiva and its field partner MAXIMA the family was able to improve the family’s home. They now live much more comfortably and safely than before and have had no difficulties paying back the loan.

As is common in most rural Khmer homes, Chantha and her family live in a house on raised stilts to avoid the floods and to keep the house cool. The family works and receives guests in the open area under the raised home and sleeps in the closed upper part. For years the family enclosed this upper part with corrugated metal, a material which does a poor job at keeping out the rain and insects. With their loan from Kiva Chantha and Dy were able to enclose half of the upper part of their home with wood. The family is now much more sheltered and the wooden floors, which were starting to rot with the incoming rains, are protected from further decay.

Chantha arrived home as we started to ask Dy about the family’s plans for the future so both husband and wife shared with us their goals.. They would like to take out another loan from Kiva and MAXIMA in the future to finish enclosing their home with wooden planks. They also told us that they hope when their four children finish school they will carry on the family business by working to help their parents weave silk.

Below: Chantha and Dy asked that we not include a picture of them but encouraged us to share with lenders a photo of their newly renovated home.