Thorn Ith

Thorn Ith
Status: Raised
$300.00 Loan Request
$300.00 Raised
http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=26402

About the Entrepreneur Name: Thorn Ith
Business Name: Thorn Ith's Silk Production
Location: Muk Kampoul district, Cambodia
Primary Activity: Weaving
Loan Requested: $300.00
Repayment Term: 12 months - repaid monthly
Loan Use: To purchase silk and nylon thread and other materials for weaving
Date Posted: Dec 5, 2007
Date Funded: Dec 5, 2007

Mrs. Thorn Ith (age 52) has been widowed since 1997. She lives in a small village across the Mekong River about fifteen kilometers north of Phnom Penh. She shares her one-room house with three of her children, one son-in-law and one grandson. Though Thorn learned to weave from her mother many years ago, she’s been working at it commercially for only about seven or eight years. She has also taught her daughter, now age twenty-one, (see photo) who joined on a second loom. They both laughed that the daughter is now the better weaver because her eyes are better than her mother’s.
Thorn is requesting this, her third loan from MAXIMA, in the amount of $300. She will use the funds from the loan to buy materials for weaving. Prior to taking out a loan, Thorn worked on a barter basis with a local middleperson. The middleperson would advance her an amount of weaving thread. Out of that thread, Thorn would give back two finished pieces and get the profit only from one. She now makes more profit as the cost of the thread is less and the price she gets for the finished cloth is more – as long as she conducts all the transactions in cash.

In addition to weaving, Thorn also farms rice with her son-in-law. Her farm plot is five kilometers from her house so weaving productivity declines during planting and harvest seasons due to the demands of farm work and commuting. In addition to paying for family living costs and the fees for her one child who remains in school, she is saving money to buy a cow.