Improving lives through water hyacinth

Kim Cooperative Bank in Long My district, Hau Giang Province, specializes in the manufacture of products made from water hyacinth not only markets in some countries, but also creating jobs for over 500 employees, contribute to improving lives of the rural poor.

 

In 2009, Mr. Ho Van Ut found locally have a lot of water hyacinth, a source of abundant raw materials for the manufacture of handicrafts items, while many rural workers have undergone vocational training knitting but do not get a job. From these conditions, he Arabia has decided to establish cooperatives specialized in producing handicrafts made from water hyacinth to make use of available materials and create jobs for people.

Mr. Ho Van Ut said: "The initial difficulties of the cooperative's product design and consumer markets. I went to several places to study samples of products and contact the company consumes, then Kien Truong Thinh company in Long An province received product consumption of the cooperative with the models launched by the company. gradually, some traders also tried to order the cooperative to sell in the big city ".

Most products made from water hyacinth by the Cooperative made by exporters in foreign markets such as the US, the Netherlands and some countries in Asia should the product do all the labor spent training courses in agriculture village of knitting and craft primary certificate. The cooperative currently has 15 members specializing in work and test products and over 500 households of homemade goods.

These products are mainly Cooperative, chair, bag, box ... weaving from dried water hyacinth with iron frame inside. Monthly delivery Cooperative Kien Truong Thinh Company and the dealers and get a new model, the goal of communication products for the household. Raw materials are products that people hyacinth harvested from natural sources in rivers, canals or grow.

The cooperative has contracted offtake of 200 households with water hyacinth as a source of raw materials for the products, in addition to selling hyacinth materials for some parts. Each month, the cooperative provides companies and traders around 40,000 to 50,000 kinds of products in the amount of nearly 500 million. Each household members and processed for the income from about 3-5 million / month. That's a small income for workers in rural areas.

Mr. Ho Van Ut share: The study of vocational training for rural workers are weaving cooperative guidance on product samples and templates for receiving, material to work from home. So the workers can be active in farming and animal husbandry at home and knit products at their leisure.

Currently they work for Cooperatives in most communes in Long My district, in which many households in poor communes as Permanent, Permanent A Soap version, and there are about 60 ethnic Khmer households receiving product to do at home. The majority of income from the processing of handicrafts items from hyacinth helped households living and income stability rather than before. In addition, some families planted hyacinth exploitation or sold to cooperatives also have a steady source of income.

Cooperative Bank Kim existing buildings, the storage of materials, products, and trucks to transport goods in the future should invest some additional machinery and equipment for finishing products such as drying, government varnish ... to improve the quality of products and good prices more. Source product also failing to meet the huge demand of companies and traders, cooperatives will continue to receive workers were trained to work in rural areas.

According to Mr. Hong Xuan Binh, Head of the Department of Labor job training - Invalids and Social Affairs Hau Giang Province, Kim Cooperative Bank is one of the sources of high quality products, providing the market with large. In addition, the cooperative has proactively contact the local training center for more trained workers to contribute more jobs for rural labor.