Chevron, "Save the Children" Empower Mekong Delta Women Entrepreneurs

On February 25, a workshop was held among local Government, the community, and Save the Children in Vietnam to review the performance of a Chevron-sponsored program to provide loan and savings services and deliver business training to support women who run small businesses in the Mekong Delta.

 

The program, entitled “Economic Empowerment of Women Entrepreneurs”, has enabled 482 women to access small loans in Can Tho, and has provided agri-business management and financial skill training to an additional 264 women in Can Tho, Hau Giang, and Ca Mau in 2010. The workshop focused on lessons learned over the past year to prepare for the project’s 2011-2012 plan.

 

Save the Children reported that the program has expanded its client base in 2010 to cover eight hamlets in Truong Xuan commune in Can Tho, with 90 percent of the clients using their loans for income-generating activities such as raising pigs, weaving bamboo baskets, producing handicrafts, knitting, sewing, running small shops, and growing crops. To date, the project has maintained a 100 percent repayment rate.

 

The project is part of a larger Chevron-led program to support initiatives for housing, education, and the development of small businesses that reached over 1,000 recipients in the Mekong Delta in 2010.