Tour with Microventures

So on Saturday we went on a tour with Bloom microventures.org which is a non-profit social business. It provides microcredit to entrepreneurs living below the poverty line.  When you go on the tour part of the money goes directly to the persons home you visit in the countryside.

Website:- http://www.bloom-microventures.org/vietnam/

Ms Mo was the lady we met who is 38 and lives in the Hoa Binh district community with her family and father in law.  This is common in Vietnam to live with the family of your husband. 

Ms Mo

Some of the local neighbours...so cute.

Ms Mo decided to show us how to make sugar cane dumplings.  Above with Loan (our tour guide) and below where everyone got in on the activity.

Part of our group sitting having tea and a discussion at Ms Mo's house.   

   

Another of the neighbors, the little girl just came in and sat down with us.

The kitchen in the house below...the pot is ready to boil the dumplings.

The family had been living off Cassava (a type of sweet potato) growing it on their piece of land.  The price of Cassava has dropped to a point where the revenue barely covers the costs.

                                         
                    This is their land with some Cassava trees on the hill and corn in front.

                          These are the Cassava plants up close...the roots are the Cassava.

Ms Mo came up with the idea of diversifying the family income into livestock production.  She purchased the first loan last year to invest in chickens.

Below you can see she still has chickens but the number has been kept low at this time of the year as it’s very cold and she has to keep them inside the house.  They are really fat chickens though!

 With the profit earned from the first investment Ms Mo started raising pigs for meat.  With the loan we have helped with she is going to expand the pig farm.  It was really nice to see where the money will go.

A particularly photo friendly pig..she currently has 3. 

Below the pig pen beside the house.

After we went there we travelled to another of their loan recipients where they are starting up a homestay place and they cooked an amazing lunch for us.

Below looking through under the house where we ate.

                                                   Below is the house from the street.

They tried to teach us how to weave a basket...some were more successful than others..count me out of that group...I was hopeless and impatient.

What it should look like on the right, a shrimp catching basket and on the left the started baskets for us.

Phil and Kayla having a go at it.

In the near future Bloom will able to offer the tour with the homestay included.  This is the homestay area...looked really cosy.

Below a pic with random buffalo who wandered in to be fed next to the house.

Following lunch we went for a wet and cold walk to see the lake just down the road, which would be beautiful in summer or on a nice day.  That's a fish farm in the middle of the picture.

                         

Below are the baskets, like the ones we made, that are tied together on the back of the boat to go fishing.

                               

We all got back in the bus to head for a look at a local medical centre built by the Australian government, see the plaque below.  It has a very good reputation, people come from miles around to get treatment there.

Interesting food pyramid above, with salt at the top of this chart.

Prices to visit the centre, it costs about $7.50 to have a baby delivered there.

 We went into a local ‘factory’ where they made straw brooms which are exported to China…funny to even say that!  It was interesting.

              We had a quick look at a local primary school, no kids it was Saturday afternoon.

                                                  Picture of the school grounds.

                                     

                                     

Then home to Hanoi.  It was a very cold and wet day but well worth the time taken and the money invested.  Nice to have a day where the money we spend goes to a good cause.  It was also nice to be somewhere where we didn't feel that we were imposing as you often do looking around a village as a tourist.  We felt like we had contributed and the people were very welcoming.

A nice day in the countryside.