Micro Enterprise Projects for Village Women

For over 30 years, Dooley-Intermed has provided financial support to a self help, small enterprise project, training village women and displaced refugees in handicraft techniques, making marketable products and earning them much needed income.

The origin of this undertaking goes back to 1957 in the midst of war torn Laos, these desperate, hungry, sick mountain women had nothing left but fear and hopelessness. A truly remarkable lady Vanida Sounthone Mongkhone took them in, provided shelter and meals, and gave them employment, allowing them to earn income by sewing and weaving, making clothing and handicrafts native to their culture and at which by tradition they were very skilled.

This remarkable effort was interrupted when Vanida was arrested in the wake of the Communist take-over of Laos in 1975 and sent to a rural “re-education” camp for three years, which she barely survived. After her release, Vanida emigrated to Bangkok, in 1980, to continue her work helping refugees become self-sufficient.

With ongoing assistance from Dooley-Intermed, Vanida has been able to restructure and expanded her program, and has established a training center in the town of Nong Khai in northern Thailand on the Lao border, with a staff of five highly skilled trainers who are expert in the techniques of sewing, weaving and handicraft design. This training program is much in demand by village women, as they know it represents an opportunity to have a better life for themselves and their family.

Women and young girls in the villages of Asia, as well as in most of the rest of the underdeveloped world, have little, if any, opportunity, because:
• 60-70% of the women are illiterate.
• They have little opportunity to pursue training for job careers.
• Educational opportunities are often a privilege only for the males.
• Universal discrimination in affects their nutrition and health care.
• As a result of life-long discrimination in the labor markets women continue to receive less pay than men.
• Older women are more likely to be widowed and left to live alone facing economic hardships and are then especially vulnerable to chronic and debilitating diseases.
• Local customs and inheritance laws, favor sons over daughters and children over wives, making women more likely than men to end up in poverty in old age.

Dooley-Intermed sees this handicraft training program as one that enables women to escape from village life, learn new skills, and earn money for themselves and their family. Most important it gives them a window to a brighter future. The achievement of social, economic and political equality together with the attainment of basic human rights will still take years to accomplish.

We are thankful for our donors continued generous help, without which none of this most important program would be possible.