This IWD let's celebrate our inspiring learners: Chantha’s story.

This IWD let's celebrate our inspiring learners: Chantha’s story.

This story was collected by Tou Chandara, Good Return’s Partner Training Officer, and written by Lim Arunremfa, Good Return’s CAFE Asia- Pacific Program Officer.

With International Women’s Day marking a crucial date on our calendar at Good Return,  there is no better time to celebrate the inspiring women we work with at Good Return. In this blog, Tou Chandara and Lim Arunremfa take a moment to highlight one of our learners, Chantha, and hear more about how Good Return’s financial education program has assisted her to better manage her business, living situation and gain new knowledge about budget planning, saving, and proper spending.

Meet Chantha.

Chantha is a garment worker in Phnom Penh. She is also a small business owner.

Chantha is also one of the most recent graduates from our financial capability program (CAFE or Consumer Awareness and Financial Education). The CAFE Initiative is an innovative financial education program that helps learners make good financial choices so they can plan for the future and take control of their money.

Chantha participated in a special financial coaching program implemented by Good Return and local partner People in Need (PIN) through the Workers Union Federation for Development (WUFD). The program was developed in urgent response to the impact of Covid-19 on garment workers from low-income urban settings in Phnom Penh. Currently, there are 850,000 people who work in Cambodia’s $7 billion garment industry. 80% of these are women who have no access to financial and social security nets such as unemployment benefits, parental or sick leave (United Nations, Cambodia. Sreysros Keo 2021). Lockdowns during Covid-19 also resulted in the closure of garment factories across the country and left tens of thousands of low-paid garment workers without income (Reuters, Yon Sineat, Matt Blomberg 2021).

Before participating in CAFE Financial coaching, Chantha did not know how to budget financially nor did she have any savings plans. She used to love spending her money on shopping and buying exciting new things. However, these spending habits made her life difficult, especially near the end of the month when her income could not keep up with all her expenses. This meant that at the end of the month she would always have to borrow money from her peers and then repay them when she got the next month’s salary.

Chantha believes that her life has improved significantly after joining the financial coaching program: “Through the financial coaching program, I am now like a new person, whose livelihood is far different and better than before with more happiness in the family and less worry on debt”. 

Chantha had also never paid attention to the consequences of having a loan or borrowing someone else’s money. Chantha explained that the program has taught her important lessons about managing money and being more critical when asking for loans. She learnt a lot about lending during the program: such as how to assess different lenders when seeking a loan in order to compare and analyse the various options available. She also learnt about negotiating and thinking about if she can afford the loan before taking it  - something she had not previously known how to do.

She has also learnt the importance of managing her income and has started practising financial management by categorising spendings for essentials to match with her income whilst also keeping a small amount for saving. She is now planning to re-invest these savings into her small business which will lead to business expansion and hopefully more profit.

Finally, a key new skill she has taken from the coaching program is to differentiate between buying what she wants and what she needs. Realising the impact this is having on her own expenses, she has started sharing this financial knowledge with her family. She explains that it has already changed their living situation as they now have enough income to sustain their living until the end of the month.

Equipped with a new financial planning mindset, Chantha thanked her coach, Kimsour, from PIN for his leadership, in addition to PIN and Good Return.

Well done to wider CAFE Team in Cambodia who worked on this project with PIN including Tou Chandara, Lim Arunremfa and Uk Phaikdey. 

Good Return’s CAFE initiative is supported by the Accenture Australia Foundation and the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program.