Microfinance programme (Russei Keoh District: Phnom Penh)

      

13th of December 2007

Beyond the clearing, in the shade of the trees and crowded wooden houses, women sit together, cutting and preparing the fish for the racks. The youngest worker, a shirtless little girl in pink trousers, caught my eye. Her name is Deen and she’s only 6 years old. Being the eldest of three siblings, her beautiful little face bore the look of responsibility and hardship. There was a no-nonsense way she worked with her aunts, cousins and neighbours; it was obvious there was a job to be done. >ssei Keo district on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Muslim Aid has been supporting a number of orphans and small entrepreneurs through its Rainbow Family and Micro Finance Programmes. The Micro Finance beneficiaries are fish driers by trade, and we've been supporting them since April this year. Before Muslim Aid offered an alternative, these people used to borrow money from other Micro Finance organisations with a high interest rate of 3.5%. Many found themselves heavily in debt and are still struggling to repay these loans today.

Muslim Aid had initially planned to support 120 families with Micro Finance, but with a service charge of only 0.8% and additional support at no cost, many of the families were able to pay back their loans before the appointed nine month period. This enabled us to offer the service to more families in the vicinity. Today we have 200 Micro Finance beneficiaries in Phnom Penh.

The Tre roh fish which the women prepare is caught locally in Thonle Sap river. It is boned, seasoned and splayed out across large wooden racks in a sunbathed clearing. The heat and glare is so intense, that often the fish is ready to send to market by midday and a new batch is laid out across the >racks.

I asked about Deen’s schooling and was pleased to discover that she goes to school in the afternoons. Though it is a public school, her mother, Danny and father, Ahmet, still need to pay 10 cents a day for her to attend but the success of their fish business has helped towards this.

Just as we’re leaving, two women, Sefas and Arokeya come to greet us with great big smiles, their children crowding about them, topless and barefoot. I can’t understand a word of what was being said, but their voices are cheerful and high-spirited.

I remember seeing a picture of Arokeya in a previous promotional leaflet when Muslim Aid’s Micro Finance Programme in Cambodia was first launched. It was of her receiving her loan. The difference between that picture and the ones I now took spoke volumes-there was no need for a translation, I simply smiled and nodded.

Qurbani Livelihood Program – Kampong Thom

14th December 2007

Slipping into a satisfied silence is easy when you’re surrounded by a foreign language. In a different country, you eventually grow used to making faces and hand gestures and find that words, far from being necessary, often get in the way.

Cambodia is a strange and beautiful land. The majority of Cambodians live in extreme poverty and are faced with a standard of life which is even more expensive than Malaysia. Yet regardless of the hardships they face, they are perhaps the most smiley people I’ve ever met.

It isn’t uncommon to catch a stranger’s eye only to be met with a great big smile that you cannot help but return. The Muslims of Cambodia were originally the Chiam people of Vietnam who crossed the border to settle here long ago. Today they are still known as the Chiam people, and most of them are bilingual, speaking their mother-tongue, Chiam, and the native Khmer.

The day I spent in Phnom Penh and then the two hour journey to Kampong Thom, gave me ample time to reflect on this new world around me and settle comfortably into my new silence.

In the summer of 2007 Muslim Aid launched a pilot livelihood programme to coincide with the Qurbani programme later in the year. In this region, we purchased 24 cows and gave them to 8 families (3 per family). The beneficiaries would then care for the cows and fatten them up over 6 months for the Qurbani period. With Qurbani beginning in a week, Muslim Aid is preparing to buy the cows back from the beneficiaries at double the amount it initially cost (depending on the size and weight of the animal). The families will then keep the profit and pay us back the original cost. Come Qurbani, their meat will be distributed to the needy in these villages, as well as the households who cared for them.

Cambodia is the first country in which this project is running. With luck, it won’t be the only one.

It was rice harvesting time when we got to Kampong Thom. With everyone out in the paddy fields, a peaceful dusk hung over the villages. A little boy with a battered green cap stood in the shade of a wooden stilt house minding two cows. Cambodian cows look very different from our traditional image of those round, yellow beasts you see in the Anchor ads on TV. They are leaner, with willowy legs and a small udder. I asked whether the villagers were able to benefit from the milk over the 6 month period but I was told that in Cambodia, cows are only used for beef because they don’t give much milk.

The boys name was Safi Ya, and I was surprised to find out that he was 17 years old. He was small, malnourished but with a beautiful smile- I just couldn’t get over his age! The youngest of four siblings, Safi helps his parents with tending the cows after school. The school is twenty minutes walk away.

“I like school.” Safi said, shyly “I want to be a doctor or a teacher.”

Safi’s mum, Aysha and dad, Zakariya, have been with Muslim Aid since the start of the Livelihood Programme, 6 months ago. Before they joined the programme, Zakariaya used to be caretaker of the local mosque. He was paid in cash and sometimes rice, but it was barely enough for them to get by. I’m told that one can of rice is enough to feed one family for a week. Thanks to the livelihood programme, Safi is able to regularly attend school.

The future looks brighter for the family, yet Zakariya has a request. He suggests that if they were allowed to keep the cows for a longer period, it would be better for them, as they will be able to fatten the animal more, so that they can fetch a greater price.

“If Muslim Aid will let me do this program for 2 or 3 times more,” he says hopefully,

“I will be able to save enough for us to afford our own cows.”