In this post Erica, a member of the Melbourne Microfinance Initiative, writes about her experience of working with JWOC.
In
July of 2012, myself and five other students from the University of Melbourne spent
two weeks with JWOC, working with the Microfinance Project. We have been
working with JWOC by correspondence for the past year and a half through the Melbourne
Microfinance Initiative (http://www.melbournemicrofinance.com/) and this was
our second annual trip to Siam Reap to implement the deliverables that we have
been working on.
The
deliverables that we have been working on this trip have included creating a
microfinance glossary for new scholarship students, troubleshooting the
microfinance software used, creating a loan collection handbook and designing a
risk scorecard to cut down on the time needed to assess potential borrowers. In
addition we ran a group of classes for the microfinance team with topics that
varied from using Excel to understanding credit risk.
Working
with Sovann, the microfinance project manager and the microfinance team has
been an amazing experience. It has been a privilege to work with such a fantastic
group of people. They have been exceptionally welcoming and happy to answer any
and all questions we have had, and this has been greatly useful in helping us
stay on target and work through our tasks. We have spent a lot of time with
them,from riding on the back of their motorbikes to go on loan repayment
collections and completing surveys, to observing them meeting borrowers and
disbursing new loans.We have loved working with them and hope we will continue
to keep in touch with them!
Meeting
all these borrowers who we have been working to help has been a truly eye
opening experience. Seeing the way these people lived, with so little, yet
having the determination to take out a loan to try and improve their lives was
inspiring. The fact that these people had limited material possessions, yet were
still able to smile (although they may have just been laughing at my attempt to
speak Khmer!) was truly humbling. With all the marketing for charities that I
have been exposed to in Australia, I half expected to see all people living
with so little to be sitting down, depressed, with little to no will to live.
Seeing that this was not the case, that people in poverty were not a different species,
but humans too and like anyone deserves a life that they could be proud of has strengthen
my resolve to keep working with JWOC.
Meeting
the kids who attended free classes at JWOC was one of the best parts of the
trip. We were able to spend some time with them and play with them. From
teaching them how to play Aussie rules football with the footy we brought along, to playing the classic ‘keepings off’, even teaching the
kids how to fist bump, it was a lot of fun to interact with the kids. They even
taught us how to play a game with their collector cards! Seeing the kids run
around and just be kids was heartening, to see that they were still able to
have fun and live their childhood.
Another
really valuable experience that we had was when we went to visit some local
universities. We visited two universities where the majority of the microfinance
scholarship students came from Build Bright University (BBU) and the University
of South East Asia. At these universities we had the chance to interact with
some of the other students at the university. It was particularly interesting
to have a chat with some of the students before the lecture. Hearing about
their experiences and how determined they were to learn English was truly
humbling. One person I talked to, spent three hours a day learning English -
one hour translating the newspaper, one hour on grammar, and one hour on
listening. Stories like this show the immense determination of the Cambodian
people that I have come to see and admire. This spirit of always wanting to
improve themselves and their odds in life is the precise mentality that
microfinance need, to be successful and effective.
Despite
having spent many hours in the meeting room of JWOC with my fellow MMI team, we
feel like we have just barely begun to do our part to help the Khmer help
themselves. It has been an amazing experience, and JWOC has been fantastic in
giving us the opportunity to not only help them, but to get a holistic hands on
experience with Cambodian people through the trips to the countryside with
borrowers and organising the trips to the universities.
It
has been a whirlwind two weeks and I cannot believe that it has passed so
quickly. It has been two weeks that I will not forget in a hurry and the
memories of the places I’ve been, the people I’ve met, even the food I’ve eaten
will remain with me for a long time.
I
would like to thank the JWOC team, in particular Nicola and Sovann for their
endless help to make this trip happen, for such a rewarding experience. I’m
sure I will be back next year to do it all again!
