Amber Hirschy, from Huntington, Indiana, has a degree in business management and economics/finance. She put her skills to good use when she spent eleven months in Cambodia through World Hope International as a volunteer working with a local micro-finance company to help the poor obtain financial services. Amber returned to the U.S. in March 2007.
Amber's first few weeks in Cambodia were challenging as she tried to learn the language, understand the culture, and adjust to her new surroundings. Her volunteer service involved working with a local microfinance company. In addition to writing proposals, preparing international marketing materials, and building donor relations, Amber met with company clients. During these visits she learned how the small loans they received transformed their lives. She learned first-hand the benefits of microfinance, which by providing farmers and small-business entrepreneurs with affordable working capital (such as money to buy a sewing machine or livestock) empowers them to earn their way out of poverty.
"It never ceased to amaze me when a client would show me a new home that was built because of a loan he received or the way a client's business or crops had improved and thus allowed his children to be sent to school," Amber said.
Amber recalled that one client walked her all around his house pointing to what he had done with each of eight loans he'd received. He explained how every loan had improved his family's quality of life. Amber said he was one of the hardest-working men she had ever met. He had suffered greatly in the Cambodian Civil War (1967-75) and was handicapped from a landmine but not once did he let it interfere with his dreams to pursue and ultimately realize a better life for his family. His latest purchase, a sound system that he rents out for weddings and other parties, doubled his income!
Summing up her volunteer service, Amber said, "Living and working in Cambodia challenged me to see the world in new ways and to truly acknowledge the hardship and suffering that many people around the world face every day. Those eleven months were some of the most formative months of my life. I will never be the same...thankfully."
