Carpentry Business Creates Opportunity
Turning down a path to the right of the Ta Prohm Temple in the Angkor temple complex outside of Siem Reap, I was met by the high-pitched whine of an electric saw coming from a home up ahead. It was part of the carpentry shop financed by Kiva lenders, a large open shed with lengths of wood in all sizes waiting to be processed, blocks of wood fitted onto a spindle and ground into the shape of traditional drums, and intricately carved doors leaned against the side pillars. Mrs. Lev Phek’s husband was standing in the middle of the crowded workshop, wood shavings in his hair, with a crew of two other men, one of whom is his son in law and one who is a neighbor.
Mr. Lev waved and came over to greet us. His wife, Mrs. Lev Phek, the direct recipient of the Kiva loan, was at Ta Prohm Temple selling souvenirs to passing tourists, making $2.50 in profit on a busy day. He gladly explained the growth in his business due to the loan and the benefits it has had for his family.
Since 1980, Mr. Lev has done all his carpentry by hand, a slow and inefficient process that brought in little income. The family’s standard of living was much lower than it currently is. To supplement their income, he would climb palm trees to tap for sap, then boil the palm sugar for sale. After once falling from the tree, luckily not injuring himself, he knew that he had to focus on growing his carpentry business for the sake of his health.
After his fall, he and his wife took out the first of four loans from CREDIT MFI, which they repaid on time without difficulty. The first three loans he used to purchase tools, wood, and hire an assistant, building his business little by little to meet growing customer demand. This recent loan of $400 funded by Kiva was used to purchase an electric spool to more rapidly grind the wood, producing the whining sound I heard when walking down the tree-lined path to his house. His production has risen rapidly, earning him up to $10 per day in income when he has several large commissions to complete.
This has more than doubled his family’s income, allowing them to more easily pay their children’s school fees. They also use the additional capital to purchase wood and souvenirs in bulk to lower supply costs for their businesses. For the first time, he could afford to invest in repairing his home as well. Part of the Kiva loan reinforced the house and enclosed the ground floor to make their home more resistant to flooding.
Mrs. Lev Phek is assisted in her sales by her 20-year-old son, Kan, who was at home during my visit and enjoyed practicing his English. Kan normally only has time to speak a few sentences to passing tourists, so he relished spending a long conversation asking all the grammar questions he had pent up. I handed him a printout of his mother’s Kiva profile, and he read it out aloud and translated it for his father.
Kan explained that he was the oldest son and had left school two years early at the age of 18. He said he dropped out in part because he was finding it hard to make it on time to school – it’s a 45-minute bicycle ride into Siem Reap every morning. He is considering going back to school in the future now that his father’s business is doing better, but currently he helps his mother with her business and deals with the middlemen who arrive every week to sell their stock of souvenirs to the vendors. He also sells to other middlemen the traditional drums his father makes, which are then sold in the shops of Siem Reap. He has two sisters who are married and live nearby, and two siblings who are in school closer to home and also help their mother at the temple.
