VisionFund promotes local employment

“I’m so pleased with a policy implemented by VisionFund to recruit clients to be its employees. It’s very good. It provides job opportunities for community members,” says Theang Phally, a client-turned worker of the organization’s Kandal province branch.

Phally, a 28-year-old widow with a single child, joined VisionFund as a client service officer (CSO) in Leuk Dek district in February 2006 after she spent months serving as a trainee. She had been a community bank management coordinator facilitating loan procedures for her fellow villagers after having used her employer’s microfinance service for several years.

“Previously, I was simply a client. I never expected to be a VisionFund CSO. But now I have been even promoted as semi-senior CSO,” says Phally, who was selected as VisionFund ’s best client in 2004 for using loans to considerably improve the living conditions of her seven- member family.

Phally, who legally divorced her husband six years ago, is living in a small leaf house in far-flung Peam Raing commune, about 70 kilometers away from Phnom Penh, supporting her mother, her six-year-old daughter, At Vorleak, now in grade 1, three brothers and a sister—Kosal, a 25-year-old farmer, Samnang, a 23-year-old grade 9 student, and 20-year-old Veasna and 16-year-old Phalla both in grade 10.

Phally says her current job does not only better her family’s living standard, but also contributes to impacting Leuk Dek district’s population, explaining she can have money to buy food, farming tools for her four hectares of corn and bean farmland, and send her daughter and three siblings to school while clients access needy loans for increased living conditions.

“The job has made a big difference for my family, which once lacked food to eat, lived an indecent life, and could not afford education for all of my siblings,” she says, hoping that her siblings and daughter will be able to pursue education at higher level.

She insists that without social impact, she would not feel satisfied. “I also want my local residents to use our financing to advance their economy and improve their children’s education.”

Human Resources Manager Leng Thavy says that VisionFund motivates clients, their children and other local residents to become staff, enabling them to be directly involved in their community development through micro credits. Following recruitment, qualified clients or their children are provided with training to ensure they work effectively and efficiently to serve the poor.

Phally currently serves more than 400 clients with a loan portfolio of over US$ 100,000 in Kh’porb Ateav, Sandor and Kh’om Samnor communes, and normally faces no difficulty in her work except road conditions.

“Clients in the areas under my responsibility are good. They use their loans wisely to support their business and farming. But for a difficult aspect, the road to those areas is dumpy, slippery, especially during rainy season,” she says. “However, I like working with the poor. I know how they feel. I have been living in a farming area for long.”

Phally’s neighbors speak well of her and VisionFund employing her.

“She’s nice and polite. She has clever ideas. It’s so good for VisionFund to employ her. This creates more jobs for the locality, which are in short of employment,” says 48-year-old You Oeung, wishing her children also worked for VisionFund.

As of December 2007, 52 percent or about 170 of the institution’s staff were local residents including former clients and former beneficiaries from World Vision Cambodia’s Area Development Programs.