Srey Chhit

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Srey Chhit by MAXIMA Mikroheranhvatho Co., Ltd. in Cambodia. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 16 months, MAXIMA Mikroheranhvatho Co., Ltd. will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

As a Kiva Fellow, I had the privilege of visiting Srey Chhit in early January with Sothea San, a client officer for Kiva partner microfinance institution Maxima. Srey lives on Koh Dach, an island in the Mekong River that is only accessible by ferry, about 15 kilometers north of Phnom Penh. When we stopped at her house, Srey welcomed us in for a short chat about her Kiva-funded loan, her firewood business, and her husband's fishing operation.

Srey, who is now 46 -- the age as stated on her Kiva business profile is incorrect -- is in on her third loan from Maxima. She said she had never borrowed from a financial institution before she started doing business with Maxima.

Srey cuts firewood on island acreage that's owned by Cambodians who have emigrated to the United States, and hauls it back to her house by horse-drawn cart. Once she gets the wood back home, she cuts it into smaller pieces and bundles it up; her customers mostly use the firewood for cooking. She said her firewood business is doing well -- there is little to no cost overhead, so most of her daily revenue of 20,000 riel ($5 U.S.) is profit.

Srey said that she used this $250 loan from Maxima to buy nets for her husband to fish with, and the rest of the money was put towards the purchase of a new fishing boat that cost 700,000 riel (about $175). Of the two household businesses, Srey thinks that firewood is a much more dependable income-earner. She said that her husband finds success fishing about half the time, doing well about two weeks a month, while she works her firewood business every day of the week.

Srey's business profile on Kiva says that one of her three children is a monk. Curious, I asked her about her son's monastic life -- was he doing well? She said that while her son tried to be a monk, things hadn't worked out. He stayed at a pagoda for a while, but then had to leave. Now he's working in construction, as is Srey's other son. Her 17-year-old daughter works in a garment factory in Phnom Penh.

Srey said she's been ill recently, and suffers from fatigue and headaches. Despite this, she's been paying back her loan installments on time. Srey said that once she's repaid this loan, she hopes to get another one in order to buy a powered saw for her firewood business.

Pictured in the photo that accompanies this journal update: Srey standing in the yard of her house.

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

Mrs. Srey Chhit has paid off her loan already. She would like to say thank you to all Kiva lenders who funded her loan through Maxima and wish them have good luck and success every time. She hopes to ask for another loan again, please look out for her next loan request!