APHEDA's micro-finance options for Hair Make-up Nails & Wedding Outfitting @ Chhaeb Koeut village, Chhaeb
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| co-op leader Sothy, Samon
and Malis with Soksan and Barbara |
APHEDA
Hair
Make-up Nails & Wedding Outfitting @ Chhaeb
Koeut village, Chhaeb (far north Cambodia)
The ex-trainee group has built a very nice small
shop in front of one of their houses, at street level. There were 3
ex-trainees working there, the elected co-op leader Sothy, and Samon
and Malis. The co-op had started with the 6 ex-trainees from the
9-month 2012-2013 Hairdressing
Make-up and Nails Women's Development Centre (WDC) training centre class, in July 2013, inside the co-op leader’s
house. They had been permitted to borrow equipment from the WDC
training centre until the new training course started in September
2013. They had then received $225 worth of equipment from the WDC
income generation account, and took out a $200 loan from the project
loan fund. They had then set up the shop. 3 co-op members have since
got married, one has moved away, the other 2 have small babies and
are on ‘maternity leave’ and will return to the co-op in a few
months. The 3 currently working the co-op have education levels of
year 12, year 12 and year 9.
The co-op has a ‘professional’ air and the co-op
group are enthusiastic, and very capable. There are 2 other
hairdresser’s in the village but the group reported that villagers
prefer the co-op because its services are of a higher quality. We saw
one of the other 2 hairdresser’s and it looked very basic and not
attractive. The co-op on the other hand is run by capable
well-trained women who appear ‘empowered’. It is assisting rural
development in their village by offering villagers a quality service,
with ‘a touch of luxury’ to help improve people’s well-being.
They charge 5,000 R for each of their services – cutting,
shampooing, styling, make-up.
The families of the co-op group have helped them to
obtain loans from the bank to purchase wedding outfits, worth $3,000.
This enables the co-op to provide full wedding services –
outfitting as well as hair, make-up and nails. They charge $100 for a
wedding, had at mid-March 2014 done 15 weddings, enough to pay back
half the bank loans, and the wedding season was still in full swing.
The co-op members said that they had no problems within
their group; they all got on well in a spirit of trust and
solidarity, and shared the money they made equally. Income and
expenditure are clearly indicated in the co-op journal. The
evaluation team donated 40,000 R for the co-op to put a sign outside
giving the co-op a name and indicating its services.
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| Soksan visiting one very nice co-operative |
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| Salon Khmer style |
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| bookkeeping and records |
who took tamagotchi?
