Sont Oo Tehtwin supports vulnerable families in Dala, Seikkyikhanaungto, Twante and Kawhmu in southern Yangon, Myanmar. It offers financial and socio-economic services adapted to the poorest: microcredit, savings and training.
In the outlying districts of Yangon, the inhabitants are mostly poor and illiterate. They therefore have little access to paid employment. So, in order to survive, they create an informal income-generating activity: a small business, a workshop, a livestock farm, etc. But without access to credit and training, they have difficulty developing and maintaining it. Some try their luck with traditional microfinance institutions, but these require guarantees and only offer limited support.
In 2014, Entrepreneurs du Monde created Sont Oo Tehtwin (Entrepreneur in Burmese) to support extremely vulnerable families in Dala, Seikkyikhanaungto, Twante and Kawhmu, in southern Yangon. It offers financial and socio-economic services adapted to the poorest: loans without collateral, a savings account, training and advice to help micro-entrepreneurs develop their income-generating activity and improve their living conditions.
Micro-entrepreneurs form groups of about fifteen people and meet every two weeks in urban areas or every month in rural areas to make credit repayments and savings deposits, and to participate in training. Even before getting a first loan, they participate in initial training courses to learn how to save, assess their need for credit, avoid over-indebtedness and make the group work democratically and effectively.
Technical experts on regular missions equip the local team with skills to build together a sustainable social microfinance institution on all levels: legal, human, financial, etc. The SOO team is in particular supported in adopting the lending methodology, management and reporting tools, the construction and management of training modules, the measurement of social performance, etc.
The social audit conducted in 2018 shows, for example, that between the first and third loans, household net income increases by an average of 59% and the number of families that send all their children to school increases from 78% to 90%. They manage to be equipped with a refrigerator and/or a fan.
Finally, the rates of loyalty and participation in training courses and the results of the satisfaction survey show that micro-entrepreneurs are satisfied with SOO's services.
