Sunday, August 10, 2014

....another fine example of APHEDAs training success.


APHEDA's micro-finance options for Hair Make-up Nails & Wedding Outfitting @ Chhaeb Koeut village, Chhaeb

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.



Soksan visiting one very nice co-operative

Salon Khmer style


bookkeeping and records



who took tamagotchi?

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