Economic Empowerment in Cambodia

Today, Cambodia is the most indebted country in the world by volume of microfinance debt. Keeping up with loan repayments is understandably difficult and can force many vulnerable Cambodians to take additional loans, eat less, and even pull their children out of school. When they cannot pay anymore, they lose their family land and house, leaving them trapped in a downwards spiral of poverty, depression, and desperation.

Eco-Soap Bank offers stable employment to 175 women from disadvantaged backgrounds. However, economic empowerment is about more than employment alone.

Breaking the highly destructive debt spiral requires more targeted efforts to help inform and support Cambodian women. That's why Eco-Soap Bank introduced the FISCAL (Financial Information, Savings, Competence, And Loan) Management Program: a dedicated financial support and debt management program for all women employed at our soap recycling hub in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Our Solution

The objective of the FISCAL Management Program is to eliminate the use of high-interest micro-finance loans among Eco-Soap Bank employees, increase savings and disposable incomes, and reduce the stress and anxieties engendered by high debt burdens. To achieve these objectives, the program provides three intrinsically connected, mutually reinforcing components, namely:

1) A debt management and low-interest loan program – offering refinancing alternatives to reduce monthly interest rates payments and provide a sustainable source of funding that can be used to meet emergency cash-flow needs. 

2) Financial education and saving groups – to help employees manage their personal economy and increase savings 

3) Skills training sessions - to gain new tangible skills that can be used to create supplementary sources of income.

Fundraising Goal

We are raising $25,000 for the FISCAL Management Program. Your donations this #GivingTuesday will be MATCHED dollar-for-dollar by a family foundation in Pittsburgh.

Thank you for empowering women!

💚 Eco-Soap Bank