Lan Lan

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Lan Lan by CREDIT, a partner of World Relief in Cambodia. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 18 months, CREDIT, a partner of World Relief will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Lan Lan, 31, lives with her husband and three children in Siem Reap, Cambodia, the home of the famous Angkor Wat temple. Lan sells groceries, and her husband makes drums which are sold as souvenirs to tourists. Lan requested this loan to buy a motorbike and more groceries to stock her store.

I recently visited Lan to ask about her family and business. Lan said she used the money from her loan to buy a $700 motorcycle. She used $200 for materials for her husband's drum making business, and used the remainder to buy groceries. Lan says she earns about $2-3 per day at her store. Her child sells small items to tourists, and can earn about $3 a day as well. The family saves about $50-60 per month after expenses.

Recently, due to the decline in tourism (resulting from the global financial crisis), drum sales are down, and the family can save little or no money, especially because the must make monthly repayments for their loan. Lan said that when she doesn't have money, she stops buying medication for her husband, who has problems with his heart.

In the future, Lan hopes to build a new house, as well as a stand where she can sell her goods near one of the temples.

(For those viewing this update in email, this lender's profile can be viewed here: http://partners.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=54769, and all loans from CREDIT MFI in Cambodia can be viewed here: http://partners.kiva.org/about/aboutPartner?id=9)"