Muslim's microfinance project had heped Nan Sabtas making a good living.
After 30 years of washing fish, Nan Sabtas's hands are soft and wrinkled.
Hunched over a blue plastic bowl, she cleans some 50 kilos each morning, and yet her job is far from over. The fish has to be rubbed with salt, sugar and seasoning before being laid out on wooden slats to dry in the scorching Cambodian sun, and then taken to the market to be sold.
Helped by her husband, Nan Sabtas, 42, buys, dries and sells fish in the village of Chrang Chamres to support her six children. Like many other families in this mostly Muslim village on the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh, Sabtas was just making enough to make ends meet. She could not expand her business despite good prospects nor could she save or buy small extras to make her life more comfortable.
Others in her village were in a similar situation, unable to improve their cramped houses or buy new baskets for washing fish or send their children to good schools. Most of them could not afford running water or electricity. Living on the banks of the wide and fertile Tonle Sap River, they relied on it as the source of water and livelihood. .
Hunched over a blue plastic bowl, she cleans some 50 kilos each morning, and yet her job is far from over. The fish has to be rubbed with salt, sugar and seasoning before being laid out on wooden slats to dry in the scorching Cambodian sun, and then taken to the market to be sold.
Helped by her husband, Nan Sabtas, 42, buys, dries and sells fish in the village of Chrang Chamres to support her six children. Like many other families in this mostly Muslim village on the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh, Sabtas was just making enough to make ends meet. She could not expand her business despite good prospects nor could she save or buy small extras to make her life more comfortable.
Others in her village were in a similar situation, unable to improve their cramped houses or buy new baskets for washing fish or send their children to good schools. Most of them could not afford running water or electricity. Living on the banks of the wide and fertile Tonle Sap River, they relied on it as the source of water and livelihood. .
"When I went on my early morning trip to the fish seller, I knew I would not be able to buy as much I could sell, and that was frustrating," said Nan Sabtas. "The fish seller would charge me about one-fourth extra for each kilo of fish because I was taking it on credit. At the end of the day, when I paid the money off it was to the benefit of the fish seller, leaving me with only the smallest of profit margins."
But after April 2007, Sabtas's life changed when she became the recipient of a loan from Muslim Aid Cambodia. The £125 enabled her to buy as much fish as she could process as well as three plastic baskets and two bamboo baskets. Her capital increased month by month.
To be repaid in installments of £13 over 10 months and best of all, with no interest, it was a loan Sabtas was comfortable in taking.
"Other places charge high interest and so my business can't make much profit," said Nan Sabtas. "But with this loan, I'm not worried about not being able to repay."
She also pays a service charge of 50 cents a week and saves 25 cents. In addition to the funds, Muslim Aid Cambodia's credit officer is on hand to provide training and advice in management, planning and handling finances.
Nan Sabtas wants to use the extra cash to give her children a good quality education and to improve her own standard of living.
"Without the Muslim Aid Cambodia loan I would have lost the opportunity to expand my business and I would have lost my capital," she said. "Now everyone else wants a loan and asks me how they can get one."
The Cambodia office is one of the newest of the Muslim Aid's field offices, but the international relief agency has already initiated a number of projects in the country. Saif Ahmad, CEO of Muslim Aid, recently met with Cambodian prime minister Samdech Hun Sen to explain the vision, mission and goals of Muslim Aid. .
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