Phonhong handicraft producers win through finance
Phonhong handicraft producers win through finance
Handicraft producers in Nayang village, Phonhong district of Vientiane province have earned extra income from selling their products after gaining access to finance, contributing to improving their livelihoods and family finances.
Nayang village in Phonhong district was considered as a poor village in the past and most of the villagers were relocated from other areas. They relied on rice farming, livestock breeding, weaving and traditional handicrafts.
Nowadays, most of the villagers' livelihoods have been improved after they gained access to credit finance, thanks to the Women and Family Development Deposit-Taking Microfinance Institution, commonly known as the WFDF.
In the past, local people borrowed money from predatory lenders but they were charged with high interest rates and suffered from debt burden as a result.
The Women and Family Development Deposit-Taking Microfinance Institution gave them opportunities to borrow money with appropriate loan rates to breed animals and produce handicraft items.
This will help them to stop borrowing money with high interest rates from predatory lenders, said Ms Thongnath Vongphachanh, head of WFDF's customer centre and handicraft group in Nayang village.
The customer centre in Nayang village now has about 70 women members with more than 100 million kip in deposit-taking.
Those members form groups of four to five members and they can generate large amounts of income from their handicraft production.
“My group comprising some five members can earn over 4 million kip per day from selling handicraft products.”
We sell our products in Vientiane and the provinces of Vientiane, Luang Prabang, and Champassak.
As of today, the WFDF offers services in six districts of three provinces, comprising Hadxaifong and Xaysettha districts in Vientiane; Thaphabath and Borikhan districts in Borikhamxay province; and Phonhong and Sanakham districts in Vientiane province.
Its services now extend to cover some 82 villages in the six districts and WFDF now has over 112 customer service centres with a total of 5,250 members.
From 2009 to 2014, the Women and Family Development Deposit-Taking Microfinance Institution has disbursed loans of over 40 billion kip (about US$5 million) to the target groups for productive purposes, mainly in trade, production and the agricultural sector.
The Women and Family Development Fund (WFDF) of the Lao Women's Union (LWU) was established in 2009 with the support of the Savings Banks Foundation for International Cooperation (SBFIC).
The vision of the WFDF is to become a leading provider of financial services to low income women and their families in Laos.
Based on its roots in the LWU, the aim is to combine social responsibility as well as the professional excellence of its staff and at the same time be a model of best practice microfinance institution.
