Although Vietnam and Cambodia are developing rapidly, millions of people still live in poverty. In Vietnam, an estimated 5 million people live on less than $1 a day. In Cambodia, nearly a million people live in the most difficult conditions. Remote rural areas are particularly affected by these conditions.

Several factors contribute to this acute poverty. The lack of adequate prevention and care pushes people into debt and disability. The lack of access to bank credit is another. Finally, the cost of education can be very high; for the poorest families, children can cost their families almost 30% of the total family budget. As a result, many inevitably fail to complete their education and end up in dangerous, poorly paid jobs. This situation is particularly dangerous for girls, who become easy targets for domestic violence.

Goal

The aim of this project is to lift people out of poverty through educational, micro-credit, health and environmental initiatives in remote villages in Vietnam (in Bình Thuân, Ninh Thuận and Hâu Giang provinces) and Cambodia (in Rumduol district, Svay Rieng province).

Activities

Using a multi-disciplinary and participatory approach, project activities may include:

• Providing training, capital and technical support for individuals to cultivate, raise livestock or open small businesses;
• Providing scholarships for local children;
• Provide village-based preventive health training;
• Helping communities to organise and develop activities for the environment and the healthy development of their village.

Impacts to be reached

• Provide training and microcredit to +1,000 new households a year and help increase their income by 15-20% a year;
• Offer scholarships to 3,500 children each year, with 100% of them continuing their education;
• Provide preventive health training for at least 1,000 women a year.

Myriad Canada is working with Mekong Plus on this project, a non-profit organisation founded in 1994 whose mission is to help the poorest families in rural villages in Vietnam and Cambodia lift themselves out of poverty, through local NGOs and community empowerment. It has grown to cover a thousand villages, directly reaching nearly 200,000 villagers each year. Every year, Mekong Plus awards more than 3,500 school bursaries to the poorest 2-3% of children, and already 8,000 households have been lifted out of poverty thanks to the organisation's programs.