FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

HANOI COMES TOGETHER TO FIGHT DEBT
A Fundraiser to Chi Em's Debt Relief Program

The Chi Em Project, a microfinance and business development program in the highlands of Vietnam, is hosting a benefit party on Friday, February 22, 2008 at Roots Bar in Hanoi to fundraise for its new debt relief initiatives.

Who is Chi Em?
The Chi Em Project is a microfinance program administered by the French-based NGO Entrepreneurs du Monde and the Vietnamese Women's Union. Chi Em provides loans, savings, and business training to its clients in the highlands of Dien Bien province, one of the most impoverished regions of Vietnam. Chi Em's target clients are ethnic minority women. Chi Em currently has over 130 microfinance clients and targets to reach over 6,000 clients by 2010.

Why Debt Relief?
Chi Em is initiating a debt relief program in one case study village, Huoi Pung. In the late nineties, several consecutive failed rice harvests triggered a debt for the entire population of Huoi Pung (125 Kho Mu people), who borrowed from private rice lenders who charged interest rates of up to 50 percent per season. A cycle of debt ensued. Every October after the annual harvest, private rice lenders drive up the steep dirt road to Huoi Pung to collect thousands of kilograms of rice dues, leaving behind empty homes and residents disenfranchised of between 75 and 100 percent of their grain. Given the dire situation in Huoi Pung, Chi Em's microfinance program is not viable.

Rather than exclude Huoi Pung, Chi Em chose to innovate, attempting to set up a program that has never been tried in Vietnam. Chi Em expanded its activities to include debt relief through the creation of alternative financial and non-financial products. On the non-financial side, Chi Em teamed up with Hanoi Agricultural University to implement upland agricultural and animal husbandry projects that increase income-generation. On the financial side, Chi Em developed a long-term concessionary loan program to take over high interest debt, providing a lower, more affordable interest rate.

Why Reach into Your Pocket Tonight?
Funds raised at tonight's event will be used to build a rice stock house in Huoi Pung village, as part of Chi Em's initiative to take over loans from private lenders who charge high interest rates. In May 2008, Chi Em will offer to loan each Huoi Pung resident the exact amount necessary to repay the local rice lender completely, which would free Huoi Pung residents from a debt that has been spiraling for nearly a decade.

Next October, instead of watching their harvest be trucked away, Huoi Pung residents will store their grain in the Chi Em Rice House – located in their community and managed by an elected committee of Huoi Pung villagers.

The Rice House protects Huoi Pung residents by preventing the sale of rice and the resurgence of cyclical debt. The Chi Em Rice House also hedges the risk of rapidly injecting cash into a non-monetarized society and protects Chi Em from losing its concessionary loan capital.

Most importantly, the Rice House is a grassroots movement: empowering subsistence farmers to retain their harvests on their own ground, in the hands of their own people.

The benefit will begin at 8 pm on February 22, 2008 at Roots Bar in Hoan Kiem district. Guests will enjoy free passionfruit cocktails and beer, sponsored by Dai Viet Beer, as well as music by DJ Kruise and a performance by Vietnamese rapper Kim. Raffle tickets will be on sale to win prizes from our sponsors: Belissima Spa, Highway 4, La Place, Kitchen, Alfresco's, and Hung's Hair Salon. The entrance fee is 50,000 VND, which will directly support the construction of a rice storage house in Huoi Pung village.

*****

Event Highlights