Giving loans to poor women for nearly 20 years
Ms. Lo Lai Suu said "My family was very poor with a low-roofed house. We did not have enough rice to eat. My husband and I wanted a loan to buy fertilizer and seeds to develop production but had nothing to put in pledge for it". Living in a mountainous and remote area with unfavorable economic and infrastructural conditions, her family totally relies on their land for cultivatation to escape poverty. So far, the efforts of her 6-people family have been repaid. Her family now has thousands of sugarcanes, raises nearly a dozen horses without mentioning pigs, chickens and milpas. The total monthly income of her family is 7 million VND, not small at all in such a difficult and mountainous area.
Since 1997, her household’s economic condition has been improved. At that time, she saw that manywomen members in the Lao Hau hamlet WU still lived in poverty. In particular, they did not have money to buy fertilizer and seeds to develop production. Ms. Suu then gave them loans from 1-2 million VND/each person without interest, which has opened the way for many women in difficult circumstances to escape poverty. A person has even borrowed more than 20 million VND from her family for production without having to pay interest.
Over nearly the last 20 years, she has not hesitated to use her own money to help poor women without requiring collateral and interest. She even agrees if they pay the debts by agricultural products. In some cases, people in the commune borrowed her money and then left away from the locality. However, she does not lose her belief in poor women. She shared: "We are familiar with one another because of being sisters at the same hamlet and members of the same local WU’s group. All that make me happy is just the belief and instruction for them to get out of poverty. "
