Tun Aung, a Sont Oo Tehtwin beneficiary in Myanmar
The enterprising rice cultivator will afford to buy his field!
Tun Aung doesn’t regret joining Sont Oo Tehtwin, Entrepreneur du Monde’s program of social microfinance. It was two years ago. Back then, the presentation of SOO* at his village’s temple piqued the interest of the forty-something rice cultivator. He decided straight away to create a SOO group with his neighbours. Since then, Sont Oo Tehtwin team provided each of them with the necessary financial support to maintain their activity, learn how to manage it and successfully develop it.
A life of duty and labour
Previously, Tun Ang’s life had been fraught with obstacles and challenges. His father dies when he was 13. The eldest child, he gives up school to help his mother manage the farm and enable his four younger sisters to continue school. Unfortunately, his mother falls gravely ill. The cost of her medicine adds up to the already heavy charges and forces Tun Ang to sell his parents’ land. Then starts an even harder life: Tun Ang becomes a day agricultural labourer. Brave and strong, he works relentlessly, up to 13 hours a day. His ambition is to finance the end of his three sisters’ scholarship.
After that, Tun Ang gets married and wishes to unlock his future. With his wife, he starts renting a plot of rice field. Heir of a family tradition, Tun Ang has a passion for rice cultivation. On his field, he uses the ancestral techniques that he masters, strives to maximise the yield, and works on improving the quality of the soil. Little by little, the couple starts saving money, enough to afford to rent one more plot, and then another one… We are in 2015. And that’s when his path crosses with Sont Oo Tehtwin’s.
A clever management
These two last years, Tun Ang secured three loans to buy fertiliser and pay for day labourers. He increased his production and has time to travel to Yangoon to meet with the best buyers for his rice. The couple is still working hard, saving money, growing their cultures. They now manage 20 acres.
Tun Ang diligently follows the trainings and says he found the ones on spending forecast, and budget management particularly useful.
Now-achievable dreams
His business is now flourishing and Tun Ang can put money aside. His dream? To send his son to university and buy out his family’s land!
