Teach a Woman to Fish, She Eats for a Lifetime
June 23, 2009 by admin
Filed under Initiatives
More women in Cambodia now have a chance to earn a decent living to support themselves and their families. Ten women will be sponsored by MasterCard for the Hotel de la Paix Sewing Training Centre Programme, a ten-month-long programme teaching women sewing skills and offering basic education on setting up a business. As part of MasterCard’s commitment to consumer education, the program will also include basic financial literacy to help the women learn to manage their finances.
The Hotel de la Paix Sewing Training Centre is a vocational facility run by Hotel de la Paix in Siem Reap, Cambodia, that provides skills and training to young disadvantaged Khmer women. Besides sewing, students also learn English. Each graduate receives a sewing machine and start-up kit of materials upon graduation. They can then return to their villages and start their own businesses.
The students of the programme are young, disadvantaged Khmer women between the ages of 16 and 22. Many of them come from outside of Siem Reap, where opportunities to receive training or employment are few. These uneducated and unskilled women usually find work on local construction sites, earning around USD1 per day for 16 hours of labor. The initiative seeks to provide them with the skills to make a living, so that they are not subjected to working in environments which are unsafe and unsuitable.
Georgette Tan, vice president, Communications, Asia/Pacific, Middle East & Africa, MasterCard Worldwide, said, “Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world with more than 30 percent of the population still living in extreme poverty. In addition, women are disadvantaged as they do not enjoy equal access to education and paid employment. We commend the efforts of Hotel de la Paix in helping these women and are glad to be contributing to this initiative. This initiative is part of our broader commitment to women’s advancement and we look forward to seeing these women stand on their own feet to support themselves and their families.”
The Hotel de la Paix Sewing Training Centre is part of the hotel’s ‘Community Connections’ programme, which seeks to foster cross-cultural understanding and sensitivity through tourism. The program encourages guests to interact with and contribute to the local community, and comprises a host of initiatives which provide local communities with basic necessities and a livelihood.
This is the second initiative on which MasterCard is working with Hotel de la Paix, the first being its ‘Pushbike’ initiative. The ‘Pushbike’ initiative is aimed at helping needy children from outlying villages reach school with ease by providing them with bicycles. MasterCard donated a bicycle for every room paid for with a MasterCard card for the period of October to December 2008, contributing close to 400 bikes.◊
