Sam On Un

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Sam On Un by MAXIMA Mikroheranhvatho Co., Ltd. in Cambodia. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 20 months, MAXIMA Mikroheranhvatho Co., Ltd. will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

I had the pleasure of visiting Sam On Un in mid-November to get an update on her business and Kiva-funded loan. She lives in a beautiful area along the Bassac River about 15 kilometers southeast of Phnom Penh.

Sarath Tep, a credit officer for Kiva partner Maxima, accompanied me on my visit to see Sam On. When we stopped by, Sam On was sitting out front of her house with her mother, and one of her daughters was also at home.

Sam On said that this loan was her first from Maxima. Before she got this Kiva-funded loan from Maxima, she said she used to borrow from ACLEDA, a large Cambodian bank that has its roots in microfinance. When she borrowed from ACLEDA, though the interest rates were similar at about three percent a month, she had to travel to a branch to pay her loan installments. She said she switched to Maxima because its credit officers will make house calls to service her loan, saving her time and money.

Her business of selling jasmine, bananas, and longan (a lychee-like fruit) is going very well. Sam On grows some of the jasmine she sells on her own land, and buys more from other growers in her village to resell at market. She buys bananas and longan for resale from other farmers in the area. The jasmine she sells is used fresh in ceremonies such as weddings and funerals, and is given as an offering at Buddhist pagodas and temples. Dried jasmine is also commonly found in Cambodian teas.

Sam On used the $500 she borrowed to contract with growers of jasmine, bananas, and longan. By paying ahead to contract with other growers, she's been able to secure a greater supply of these items and has been able to grow her business as a result. Sam On said that before she got this Kiva-funded loan from Maxima, she used to make a profit of about 80,000 to 100,000 rial ($20 to $25 U.S.) a week. Now she says her profit has increased to about 100,000 to 150,000 rial ($25 to $37.50 U.S. ) a week.

While the local climate is suitable for growing jasmine year-round, the yield falls during rainy or cold weather. Sam On said that she's "always" grown and sold jasmine, and expanded into bananas and longan to ensure a more steady income for times when her jasmine crops falter.

Sam On said her older daughter, aged 22, is no longer working in a garment factory. Her older daughter put in four years at the garment factory, earning from $80 to $100 a month, but decided to quit when she began to develop stomach problems. Now her older daughter helps Sam On grow and process jasmine, and has returned to good health. Sam On's younger daughter is 16, and is in the 8th grade. If Sam On can afford it, she hopes to send her younger daughter to university. Her older daughter stopped school at grade 7.

When we were done talking, Sam On flashed a big smile and surprised me with a gift, a small ring of fresh jasmine. Business never smelled so sweet!

Pictured in the photo that accompanies this journal update: Sam On sitting on her stoop, holding a ring of fresh jasmine.

About Maxima:

Maxima Mikroheranhvatho Co. Ltd. was founded in March 2000 by a group of friends with the objective of providing financial services to low income clients through small loans to individuals, groups and small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Maxima aims to contribute to the economic and social progress of rural Cambodia by making credit available to those who lack access to loans from traditional commercial banks. Maxima has been a Kiva partner since May 2007, and since then Kiva lenders have helped Maxima fund more than 1000 loans.

To see if Maxima has loans in need of funding by Kiva lenders, click here. Or consider joining the Maxima fan club -- aka the Maxima lending team -- on Kiva!

Dear Lender,

Happy Year of the Ox! Thank you for supporting a Kiva entrepreneur in Cambodia.

It is the first day back in the Maxima office after Khmer New Year, and the office is abuzz with discussions of people describing their vacations. Our Kiva Coordinator, Sophal, a bright, 22-year-old Khmer girl and one of my closest friends in the office, asks me where I went.

“Battambong,” I reply, trying to pronounce the name correctly. After a few feeble attempts, Sophal at last can understand the city I mean.

“Did you dance, Julie?” She asks.

“Yes! We danced at the pagoda all three nights!” I exclaim.

“S’bai, at? Was it happy?”

“S’bai s’bai! Very happy!”

My name is Julie Picquet, and I am a Kiva Fellow working with Maxima Mikroheranhvatho, a Kiva Field Partner based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. With two-thirds of my fellowship complete, I can hardly believe that I have less than one month left with this beautiful country and its inspiring citizens.

Kiva’s Partnership with Maxima

As a Kiva Fellow, I was placed with one of Kiva’s Field Partners to provide support and transparency into the money lending process. In the past nine weeks, I have visited Kiva entrepreneurs and worked closely with Maxima staff to write borrower updates, streamline our upload processes, and help with translation. As you may know, all entrepreneurs on Kiva’s web site are supported by local Field Partners, or microfinance institutions (MFIs) like Maxima, who are Kiva’s liaison between Kiva lenders and Kiva borrowers. They choose which of their clients are eligible to receive Kiva support, write and upload business profiles, disburse loans, collect payments, write journal updates, and respond to lender comments. Currently, Maxima is the only Field Partner to be completely owned and operated by Cambodians.

Despite the prominence of microfinance institutions in Cambodia (more than eighteen major banks and counting), Maxima stands apart from the rest as a boutique firm. As the smallest of Kiva’s four field partners in Cambodia, Maxima has the flexibility to tailor its loan products to best fit client demands. For example, some loan products include flexible interest rates, allowing clients to choose a lower interest rate if they can come to the Maxima office to make their payments, rather than have the loan officer drive to the clients’ residences. This cuts down on significant costs for the MFI, who can in turn pass the savings on to the client.

Riding on the back of a Maxima motorbike, interviewing borrowers and hearing about their business operations, I am impressed by the enthusiasm villages show when a loan officer and I drive past their houses. Sothea, a loan officer whose territory is the Koh Dach Island on the Mekong river, where she was raised and her parents still live, teaches me about customer service. “I always smile, the whole time I’m here,” she says, “My clients are everywhere, I want them to see me happy!”

Client Profile: The Um Family’s Mushrooms

Maxima’s clients seem happy, indeed. In the past nine years, Maxima has disbursed over $6 million dollars of loans and reached over 10,000 families. Maxima gives not only business loans, but also loans to build houses or to send children to school. In the homes I visit, I see the signs of development – children’s homework on the bamboo bed, taxi driving certificates pinned to the wall of a humble, wooden house. Piece by piece, Maxima’s loans help Cambodians improve their standard of living through sustainable business growth.

One example of this forward movement through small business entrepreneurship is exemplified through Sotheany Um and her family. When a credit offer and I approached the Um household, Sotheany’s father proudly told me that he could speak some French (which he learned when Cambodia was a French colony), so I said “Je m'appelle Julie.” He laughed and pulled up some chairs for Sothea and I to sit, while his daughter finished some work. During our interview, Sotheany’s young daughter ran around in pigtails and holding a balloon while we talked.

Sotheany is a hardworking businesswoman. This is her first microfinance loan, and she used all $700 of her loan to start up a mushroom business near the home she shares with her parents. She learned the mushroom growing trade from her brother-in-law, who had learned it from his uncle. She started the business about 6 months ago upon receiving the loan.

In this business, large, dark rooms are filled with vertical lines of segmented plastic bags, each filled with a mushroom fertilizer. The bags hang from floor-to-ceiling, and after a few weeks, wide, white mushrooms begin to sprout from the bottoms of each segment. The Ums built two buildings to grow mushrooms, each with over 5000 segmented bags. Sotheany’s father and brother-in-law enthusiastically showed us their mushroom huts and the mushrooms that are beginning to grow.

Sotheany sells her mushrooms on the island for 6000/kg for regular consumers, and 4000 or 5000/kg for wholesalers. One problem she faces is the lack of wholesalers to purchase her mushrooms. She may need to sell some of her mushrooms in Phnom Penh as well in order to increase her market. Sotheany is hopeful that she will be able to pay back her loan on time.

This video shows my interview with Sotheany, as well as her father and brother-in-law giving us a tour of the rooms where her mushrooms grow: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoHT7jC5tUw

I was deeply impressed with the hard work that the Um household had put into starting this business. Mr. Um had even painted signs to mark the entrance of the mushroom hut, in both Khmer and French. To me, it showed the care that they have taken to run their business successfully and increase their income. On the Koh Dach Island, most people are weavers, and I imagine that it must take courage and confidence to introduce a new product to the island.

Before leaving to visit more weavers on the island, I thanked the Um family for their time and wished her success: “Some nang lo’ah!” – “Good luck!” To Sotheany’s father I said, “Au revoir!”

Maxima Welcomes the New Year

Last week Maxima brought in monks to bless the staff for Khmer New Year and invited me to join. Upstairs in our office, desks were pushed aside, mats were spread, and shoes were removed. We sat down and listened to the monks chant, as they splashed us with water and showered us with flower petals. The following day at 7:30 am, I was picked up by Maxima’s driver and brought to our Khmer New Year Party, where we met up with our second branch and the 60 or so employees cooked together, ate together and danced together as a family. “S’bai at, Julie?” They ask. “Yes,” I say, “I am very happy. Are you?”

Cambodia’s recent history paints a very different picture than the one I have come to see in my time here. Development is underway, and in the wake of a genocide, social problems and political corruption, in the faces of my coworkers and the people they serve I see happiness and determination.

On behalf of Kiva, Maxima and its hardworking clients, I thank you for your continued support of our hard work. Together, we can bring sustainable solutions to poverty and facilitate development worldwide.

We wish you a happy and healthy Year of the Ox, and we hope to continue to partner with you in the future.

Very Sincerely Yours,

Julie Picquet

Maxima Mikroheranhvatho

Phnom Penh, Cambodia