Over the past decade, thousands of families have been forcibly evicted from Phnom Penh, Cambodia into harsh suburban slums that lack basic necessities such as food and clean water. Since there are more of these communities than funding to aid them, Sovann Phoum is focused on providing low-interest loans to women in underfunded areas in order to help them establish or grow a business in their community. With your help, we can help these women and their families obtain a sustainable income.
Due to rapid urban development, thousands of families have been forcibly evicted to impoverished rural communities that lack many basic necessities. This rapid expansion has made it difficult for microfinance institutions to keep up with the demand for loans, leading many of these communities to receive little to no funding for small businesses. This has forced many evicted families to turn to loan sharks who charge extremely high interest rates, further aggravating the problem.
The high population density in these communities and lack of businesses hints at the high potential for rapid improvements in the livelihood of communities. Sovann Phoum will provide microloans to women attempting to establish or expand businesses in slum communities with low-interest loans between $50 and $250. On this amount, a single destitute family in these slums will be able to generate the daily net income of $3-5 per day to live comfortably and send their children to school.
Sovann Phoum strongly believes that the key to bringing families from poverty is by helping them establish a source of sustainable income. Lending to the women of these impoverished communities has been proven to be the most effective and direct way of ensuring that funds go directly toward improving their livelihood. To do this, in addition to providing them with funding, we will administer business advice and training in order to ensure the long term success of their businesses.
This project has provided additional documentation in a Microsoft Word file (projdoc.doc).
