A Soft Spot for Cambodia

A couple of years ago, I wrote a brochure for a charity whose main project at the time was assisting young Cambodian survivors of human trafficking (a slightly nicer term for forced prostitution) in their recovery by funding psychology services and vocational training. I learned that Cambodia is a really hard place to donate safely, because there are too many shady people - no doubt the same shady people that promise nice jobs to teenage girls and then sell them into sex slavery in Bangkok - who make a business out of tricking foreign NGOs. Seriously, they will put together a fake brothel full of fake child prostitutes for official visits and solicit funds to save them.

So when I see a decent loan on Kiva to a Cambodian, I snap it up. A couple of my micro-borrowers finished repaying their loans - Congratulations to Marta the Dominican vegetable fryer and Estela the Peruvian grain-seller!! So welcome to my portfolio for the next 8 months, Try Kan, and best of luck with the expansion of your vegetable farm :)