Mekong Plus
Mekong Plus is a non-profit, community development organization. It operates in rural areas of Southern Vietnam Vietnam & Cambodia. The key principles of Mekong Plus are:
- people's participation: nothing is done without a high participation of the people concerned
- priority of the poorest
- low cost, replicable actions.
One major program is focusing on the poorest (who live with less than $1/day); with training and microcredit microcredit, support to education and health, assisting the people for proper housing, Mekong Plus currently works with 4500 households in Vietnam & Cambodia. On average it takes 4 years to double their income. Over 8000 households have already succeeded so. Among other activities Mekong Plus provides sustainable employment for women. Together with the sister enterprise Mekong Creations and Mekong Quilts (today merged into Mekong+ Quilts), they sell products handmade by women in rural areas of Cambodia and Vietnam. At the moment the project is employing about 260 women, providing them with work close to their homes and families. Mekong+ Quilts is owned by the 2 Vietnamese NGOs which Mekong Plus helped to set up: Thiên Chí(which operates in Bình Thuận province) and Anh Dương (which operates in Hậu Giang province). All profits go to social development in the provinces of Vietnam and Cambodia and are being distributed by Thiện Chí & Anh Dương. The profits are returned to the villages both directly in the form of salaries, and indirectly in funding for community development projects. Examples of development projects are: subsiding latrines in remote areas to better hygiene, or the pig, - and chicken-raising programs, assisting poor farmers on how to increase their profit (training, follow-up, microfinance). The goal is community development.
History
Mekong Plus (previously called Vietnam PlusVietnam Plus) was founded in 1994 by 3 friends, French and Belgian. One former member of Mekong Plus was a quilter and came up with the idea of teaching Vietnamese women how to quilt. This was a great idea, and eventually the women could earn a good income. Today one can find the quilts in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh-City, Hội An, Phnom Penh and Siem Reap where the quilts are being sold. Today Mekong Plus has a budget of 1 million Euros. It supports 5 projects in 5 districts.
Mekong Quilts
In 2007 the organization expanded to Cambodia and changed name from Vietnam Plus to Mekong Plus. The newly established Mekong Quilts opened up shops in the capital of Cambodia; Phnom Penh and in the city of great temples further north: Siem Reap. The production in Cambodia takes place in the Svai Rieng province in the district of Rumdoul. The goal is to make the shops in Cambodia self-sufficient with products from Rumdoul. The designs require much training, it takes several years to become a good quilter. Several Khmer quilters have now reached this level. A long-term goal is to make Cambodia self-sufficient with products so imports from Vietnam are no longer necessary.
Mekong Creations
Mekong Creations is Mekong Quilts's younger sister company. Mekong Creations was set up to create more jobs, using local materials like bamboo bamboo, water hyacinth water hyacinth, papier-mâché papier-mâché... Today Mekong Creations has been merged with Mekong Quilts, to reduce overheads. Both social enterprises share the same shops, under the common brand Mekong+ Quilts, in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Ho Chi Minh-City, Hội An and Hà-Nôi.
Quilters
An important goal for Mekong Plus is to generate employment for women. The women are organized into various groups making different products. Mekong Plus has no factory, the women stay close to their homes and work in their village. The women's groups usually count between 10-30 women. One quilt usually takes one to four weeks to finish, and the women are paid for each product they make that passes the quality control.
A production team in Ho Chi Minh City works closely with the women to provide training. They are also providing support for the program, such as purchasing fabric and creating new designs. Quilting is a complicated and difficult trade, and the most complicated quilts take several years of training to be able to do.
Bamboo bikes
Another leading product of Mekong+ Quilts are the bamboo bikes. Each bike or frame takes at least 50 hours of careful craftsmanship. There is a wide range of bikes, from City bikes, Fixies, road bikes, mountain bikes, folding bikes... Frames have been certified for the European market. Mekong+ Quilts is also working on a bamboo helmet.
Principles and ethics
Mekong Plus operated after three main principles, all listed on its website:
- The first is to focus on the poorest who live with less than $1/day
- The second is to involve everyone in the community; participation of all. Mekong Plus believes that development works best if all are involved and actively working towards a goal. This includes deciding what actions are to be carried out and how it will be done.
- The last key principle is for the programs to be at the lowest cost possible and to be a sustainable development. The goal is to make a lot out of little. It is also important that the effort has a lasting impact not dependent on outside contribution later on.
Programs
Today Mekong Plus operates in about 800 villages, of them 60 in Cambodia. The direct beneficiaries are an estimated 200 000 people every year. This includes school children, very poor families, micro credit, quilting women and so on. Mekong Plus has many different programs, among others the tooth brushing program for school children, building bridges in the Mekong delta... Mekong Plus is also promoting best practices in agriculture: less or no chemicals, compost compost. Usually a relatively better off "model farmer" is selected to test out the project first. For example, vegetable gardens under a net are protected against the heavy monsoon rains and can therefore produce all-year round, making good profits when other farmers produce none. Nets also protect against pests and thus less or no chemicals are used. If a pilot project like this is successful they hold a seminar where people from the community around are invited to see and learn. Based on the seminar the attending families can decide if this is something they would like to try as well.
Another program carried out in the Svai Rieng province in Cambodia is the latrine program. Bad hygienic conditions are big problems in many areas in Cambodia. A few years ago only 5% household had a latrine; today the majority have one. In another region this improvement proved to have a major impact on people's health: worm infestation declined from 50-90% down to 5% only. The families contribute a major part themselves and with the help of the community, by paying for the materials for the toilet building.