Cambodia: Empowering Women at Risk
This note highlights the WORTH program being implemented by PACT in Cambodia. WORTH, which is being implemented in eight countries across the globe, consists of a sequence of activities that enable women at risk to improve their lives through financial and educational means.
The program provides no seed money, and the women themselves become bankers and lenders of funds that they own and manage. This grassroots approach allows the program to take root in regions where MFIs may not be able to reach.
The program's goal is to target the following root causes of women's trafficking in Cambodia:
- Tackle poverty and lack of education;
- Promote social change;
- Contribute to the larger economic development of Cambodia.
The note mentions that the first phase of the program in Cambodia comprised of design, set-up, staffing, and training phase. Pre-implementation activities included, inter alia, studies about:
- Adult literacy;
- Human trafficking;
- Existing microenterprise and village banking programs.
According to the note, Pact is prepared to organize 100 women's empowerment groups in order to operationalize a two-year literacy, savings, and village banking program through its local partners.
- The longer-term objective is to expand the Self-WORTH Women's Empowerment Program to over 100,000 Cambodian women.
The note concludes by mentioning that the WORTH program was a Finalist for Amazons Nonprofit Innovation Award.
