JOURNAL SEPTEMBER 2008
A Visit to Sam Mun
By Do Ngoc Hoan, Chi Em Program Officer
On an autumn morning, I traveled to visit Sam Mun commune, Dien Bien district, Dien Bien province. Sam Mun is predominantly agricultural and is located in the outskirts of the district, about 15 kilometers from the provincial center. I would say this is the best time of the year in Sam Mun with cool weather and sunny days. The landscape is covered in green trees and vast yellow fields, promising a great harvest. This time of year, the local people of Sam Mun are very busy preparing for the harvest.
Following the steps of Chi Em’s Communal Credit Officer, Mrs. Hao, I visited a family known for efficiently breeding animals. The owner welcomed us at the entrance of her yard, where I saw some fat buffalos standing beneath the stilt house beside yellow maize that was hung to dry. At the front door of the house were two pigsties separating piglets from the mother sow.
We were invited to climb up the ladder into the stilt house of Lo Thi Xieng, a partner of Chi Em program currently in her second loan cycle. We had met earlier at a Skills Training Session, where Xieng stood out as a very knowledgeable person. At the training, she had shared her farming experiences and made some relevant questions.
Xieng lives in Yen Cang village. Her husband works as the secretary of the communal People’s Committee. He is very occupied with his job, so most of the household chores are taken care of by his wife and his little children.
Xieng received 3,111,000 VND in her second loan. “The loans are helpful,” said Xieng. “Thanks a lot for Chi Em’s attention. I have a good impression from Chi Em staff members, who seem friendly and enthusiastic.”
“Besides Chi Em do you have another source to get credit?” I asked.
“Not now,” Xieng replied, “but my family is reaching out to the state bank in the next month. We are expecting to get a bigger sized loan from the state bank. I used the Chi Em loan for raising pigs and chickens. Our family is hoping to expand our activities in the very near future, as we plan to buy some more farmland. I believe in my ability and our family’s experience.”
Xieng is very entrepreneurial, with a diversity of income-generating activities. Besides the poultry and pigs she raises with the Chi Em loan, Xieng has three buffalos, wet rice fields, cornfields in the hills, a green bean garden and a fish pond.
“Since we made a separated house in 1994, my husband and I have had difficulties in getting capital,” explained Xieng. “In our impoverished situation, we started with raising some of small chickens and pigs. Luckily, we had inherited good farming techniques from our old parents and we were successful: our animals never died of diseases because we took good care and gave the animals modern treatment. Our neighbors often approach my family to learn from our experiences. They like and value us very much.”
I said goodbye Xieng and her family around noon. Along the road back to Dien Bien Phu city, hard-working farmers were still in the ripening rice fields, toiling away through the lunch hour in preparation for the coming harvest.
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"Chi Em's Agricultural Officer checks in from the field, describing our debt relief pilot."
In June 2008, Chi Em launched a pilot loan project in partnership with Hanoi Agricultural University (HAU), offering clients in serious debt subsidized loan products at zero percent interest. These loans must go towards farming projects designed by and supported with technical advice from HAU.
Mr. Nguyen Xuan An, a recent graduate from Rural Development and Agricultural Extension of HAU, is Chi Em’s resident Agricultural Officer and the driving force behind the pilot. In a recent letter to Chi Em director, Mr. An describes the day-to-day of his work with this project.
June 23, 2008
Hi Nathalie!
This morning Hoan and I went to Huoi Pung and this afternoon I went around checking prices for some farming materials: fertilizer and fodder for chickens and pigs.
It’s amazing. The households who are involved in our pilot loans have prepared well, especially the households raising pigs and chickens. They are ready to get their pigs and chickens now, so I will bring the chicks up to the village and organize to purchase the piglets earlier I originally planned. The two households who are taking loans out to grow our vegetable garden model are also ready to plant the seeds. If it’s not too rainy, we’ll move forward and plant the seeds on the 27th of June.
I have also brought worms up to the village. I guided the clients with nourishing and caring for the worms on the 21st in the morning. Today the worms are developing very strongly and beautifully. If conditions are good and there are no difficulties, in about three months the households who took loans out for the worm model will be successful and they will be able to repay the loans to our program. I’m very happy.
Two out five households have planted rice, which has also been growing so strongly; the good weather is in our favor. Today the third household planted rice in the village and finished it this morning. The fourth household is soaking the seeds and will plant on 27th. The last household has not planted rice yet because they need more irrigation and buffalo to prepare the soil.
This afternoon I carried out a survey of prices of some items we need for the models and see that the prices have risen about 3 to 4 percent more than we originally budgeted. The price for piglets also rose by 5,000 VND more than we expected, totally 70.000 VND per kilogram.
Miss Nathalie!
After I transfer the chicks to Huoi Pung I will not look after them anymore.
I wish you are very happy,
Nguyen Xuan An.
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JOURNAL FEBRUARY 2008
Dien Bien's Bitter Cold
Record Temperatures Affect Chi Em Clients
by Nathalie Miller - Chi Em Director
The record cold weather in northern Vietnam, which started on January 14, 2008 has killed nearly 60,000 cattle and destroyed hundreds of hectares of crops. Temperatures have dropped to below 10°C, recording as low as -2°C . On my last trip to Dien Bien, I learned how Chi Em clients are coping with the cold.
I found the chance to talk to clients at one of our loan introduction meetings in a new commune, Sam Mun. About 100 Thai women showed up and packed under a stilt house, crouching together and unraveling their babies from cloth carriers. I sat to the side and watched our staff introduce Chi Em, quietly impressed at how easily she slipped between the Kinh and Thai language. The women hushed their children and listened with great focus, nodding as they absorbed information about Chi Em loan procedures. Coming directly from a meeting of richer women - who scoffed at the small size of Chi Em's loans - I felt touched by the attentiveness paid in Sam Mun. These were women who were really listening because, unlike those with more access to capital, these were women that Chi Em's small loans could really help.
At the end of the session, a gray-haired woman approached me and very shyly asked about Chi Em's conditions for loaning to members of the same family. She wanted to know if she and her sister-in-law could both apply for loans even though they live together. "Are you registered in different households?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Then it's okay. You can both apply for loans," I said.
"But niece, we eat all our meals together," she replied, making me smile.
"It's okay, Auntie," our staff interjected as she gathered her belongings. "You and your sister-in-law can both apply for the 1 million VND because you're registered in separate households."
"Oh no," the gray-haired lady said. "All I want is 200,000 VND."
I swallowed. Two hundred thousand VND is equal to about $12 USD. I wanted to just open my wallet and say "Auntie! Just take 200,000 VND, if that's all you need. You don't even have to pay me back."
But I didn't give her the money. She'll be in our new wave of clients this February, one of the many farmers who need capital right now after the cold spell killed rice seedlings all over the north.
Meeting Clients: Chi Em's program relies on spending time in the field and learning about our clients' needs.
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JOURNAL OCTOBER 2007
Chi Em Approves First Round of Clients
Loans and Training for Clients in Noong Het Commune
In October 2007, Chi Em released its first loans to 34 female clients in Dien Bien province. We accompanied the loan release with business training on simple accounting techniques for our clients administered through our local governmental partner, the Women’s Union. As we are promoting short-term economic initiatives in addition to our client’s primary agrarian activities, simple accounting and book-keeping for daily, weekly and monthly income is essential.
We also provided an optional skills training for our clients. This skills training is an initiative that hires local entrepreneurs in Dien Bien province who share their skills as well as insights about starting small businesses in the region. Our first skills trainer was Tran Thi Le, a vegetable grower who presented to a small group of clients on the Sunday afternoon before loan appraisals.
Mrs. Le, a boisterous and dynamic woman in her fifties, kept her audience attentive and engaged for over two hours despite an untimely sore throat that left her voice raspy. With over 20 years of experience, she was a wealth of knowledge. Mrs. Le talked about product diversity, organic fertilizers, and marketing the vegetables. Clients asked questions about farming best practices, took Mrs. Le’s address to visit her farm, and some even offered to partner with her in her hawking her products in the market. |
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She quelled client fears that their soil was too far from the river to support water-dependent vegetables, advising them on plant species would thrive in their soil and on upgrading technology to water pumps. “Growing vegetables is easy,” Mrs. Le summarized. “You don’t have to spend a lot of money on inputs and, compared with rice, you can earn more.”
This was particularly effective because the local entrepreneur was attuned to the local environment and challenges that our clients will face. The clients felt inherently comfortable, as Mrs. Le spoke to them as a trustworthy neighbor. We presented Mrs. Le with an Entrepreneurs Certificate to hopefully increase her confidence as small business owner and encourage her to continue guiding our clients in their economic initiatives.
Chi Em was careful to do a cost-benefit analysis and research the value chain to ensure our skills training presented sustainable income-generating activities. In July 2007, we conducted a value chain analysis with the help of an agricultural-economist faculty member from Hanoi Agricultural University, who volunteered to gauge potential economic opportunities in the region and to choose our skills training topics. These steps of research are a crucial step before promoting income diversification.
The attention to preliminary research is a lesson from other poverty alleviation schemes in Vietnam, such as crop promotion and subsidized agricultural inputs. Researching the potential risks and impacts of crop promotion is crucial, as crop failure or difficulties in profiting from crop sales fall heavily on farmers’ shoulders. Chi Em therefore focus on selecting the right income activities, offering ideas to a region where a central reason for limited income growth is a lack of access to information.
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