Chevron and Save the Children empower women entrepreneurs in Mekong Delta

February 25, 2011 | 09:52

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Today a workshop was held among local government, the community, and Save the Children in Vietnam to review the performance of a Chevron-sponsored programme to provide loan and savings services and deliver business training to support women who run small businesses in the Mekong Delta.

The programme, entitled “Economic Empowerment of Women Entrepreneurs”, has enabled 482 women to access small loans in Can Tho city, and has provided agri-business management and financial skill training to an additional 264 women in Can Tho, Hau Giang, and Ca Mau last year.

The workshop focused on lessons learned over the past year to prepare for the project’s 2011-2012 plan.

Save the Children reported that the programme had expanded its client base in 2010 to cover eight hamlets in Truong Xuan commune in Can Tho, with 90 per cent of the clients using their loans for income-generating activities such as raising pigs, weaving bamboo baskets, producing handicrafts, knitting, sewing, running small shops, and growing crops. To date, the project has maintained a 100 per cent repayment rate.

“Our partnership with Save the Children reflects our long-term commitment to invest in high-value programmes to promote sustainable human progress and economic development where we operate,” said Chevron Vietnam country manager Hank Tomlinson.

The project is part of a larger Chevron-led programme to support initiatives for housing, education, and the development of small businesses that reached over 1,000 recipients in the Mekong Delta in 2010.

Chevron is one of the world's leading integrated energy companies, with subsidiaries that conduct business worldwide. In Vietnam, Chevron Vietnam and its partners have discovered significant gas resources in Blocks B&48/95 and 52/97 in the Gulf of Thailand, offshore southwestern Vietnam.

By Song Ngoc

vir.com.vn

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