The Global Fund For Children

Loan Sharks

• By Hoa Duong Piyaka on June 8th, 2010
• Category: Blog, East and Southeast Asia

Tay Ninh, Vietnam — When Lan* borrowed 20 million Vietnamese dong from her landlord, she knew she would have to pay over 40 percent interest along with the principal, or lose her home and land, but she did it anyway. Lan lives in Tay Ninh Province, which is about 100 kilometers northwest of Ho Chi Minh City.

“What option do I have?” she asks as she points toward the farmland where she grows cassava and corn. “Sometimes the payments are up to 70 percent! And if I can’t pay the loan each month; I have to borrow from a second person to pay the first one. And if I can’t pay the second, I have to find a third lender,” she explains with a wry mixture of exasperation, anger, and jocularity. She has three children to care for, two of whom are now teenagers nearing the end of secondary school. One of the daughters says she wants to be an accountant in Ho Chi Minh City, but so far she has not figured out a plan to do so.

I am thinking of the microcredit schemes for women I’ve read about in Latin America and South Asia that provide seed capital to women’s collectives and how something like that might work here in Vietnam, where the lack of access to capital poses a challenging barrier to would-be small-business owners. My mind is racing. Suddenly the voice of Le Thi My Hien, the program director of GFC grantee partner Friends for Street Children (FFSC) and my guide today, interrupts my thoughts.

Sister Hien, as Le Thi My Hien is called, expresses dismay that FFSC is unable to reach families in the provinces. She has started a microcredit program and feels remiss for not being able to offer it to families outside of Ho Chi Minh City, where FFSC is located. She also wants to invite some of the provincial youth, like Lan’s daughters, to attend FFSC’s vocational training in Ho Chi Minh City, but, she remarks, the prices there are so different. It would be too much money for them to even think about traveling to the city. “Here, for example, green onions cost 2,000 dong; in Ho Chi Minh City it’s 18,000 dong for the same bunch!” she exclaims. I can tell Sister Hien’s mind is working also, and in the end she comes up with something FFSC can do to partner with Tay Ninh families. She resolves to send a volunteer to work with one of the priests serving this parish, and she also plans to offer a health and hygiene training to the Tay Ninh families to address their lack of knowledge concerning personal health and hygiene, especially its link to the environment. FFSC conducted a similar training several years ago in this province, and it was a successful day event, with more than 150 participants from the local community attending. We both agree it would be a positive start but that much more needs to be done in this province near the border with Cambodia.

We fall back into silence, thinking about life in the provinces and watching the farmland roll past the windows. We drive along the country road, slowing to five miles per hour to avoid disturbing the pockets of rice drying in the heat. Farm workers have spread it out in the street, ingeniously mounding the rice along the middle line of the road on plastic mats and allowing enough space for tires so that cars can pass freely over the rice without disturbing the drying process.

* Name changed