Ms. Hieu: Story of overcoming poverty with “Vietnamese Fishing Net” brand

Ms. Hieu comes from a farming family with difficult economic circumstances in Binh Dinh and moved to Khanh Hoa at the age of 16. Her family sold sugarcane juice, saving every dollar for daily expenses. Hieu got married at the age of 19 and the main source of their income is from daily fishing which is unstable due to heavy dependency on weather.

Observing that Nha Phu lagoon in the locality has a deep, clean water area surrounded by mountains and the water flow is stable, she and her husband boldly put all the money they saved and borrowed from relatives to invest in aquaculture. After a period of raising lobsters and feeling the water source was not suitable, she switched to raising mackerel, seahorses, grouper ... Together, they overcame many difficulties and obstacles, learned knowledge, and gained experience while working, gradually made a profit to pay off their debts, renovated a spacious house, and took care of their children.

Besides, in order to preserve the traditional fishing net-weaving, she cooperated with the commune Women's Union to invest in constructing factories, purchasing machines and hiring local workers. At first, the production was quite difficult due to the low capital and capital turnover, lack of experience and technology know-how. Therefore, at the beginning, she only supplied nets for villagers.

In spite of obstacles, with passion, enthusiasm, and aiming to increase income, she persisted in not giving up. Nearly 10 years of learning and acquiring knowledge and experience from various information channels as well as the masters of net making, she has made her own products better, more beautiful, and more durable. After that, she named her product as "Vietnamese Fishing Net".

As a result, her business is constantly growing and expanding, helping her family not only retain traditional net weaving but also contribute to creating jobs for 30 local workers, including 21 female workers with the lowest monthly income of 5 million VND and the highest of 13 million VND/ person.

With the two factories of 340m2 and the initial investment capital of 500 million VND, she is providing services to fishermen not only in Khanh Hoa but also the others like Phu Yen, Ho Chi Minh city, Quang Ngai…Currently, her family plans to expand her production scale and reach out to several other provinces across the country. Her family has an average income from net production of 60 million VND/ month.

In addition, Ms. Hieu is also very active in local women's movements and activities. She encouraged women in the village to stay away from “black credit” but access trustable funds through the communal WU’s channel such as savings activities, revolving fund, and loans from the Social Policy Bank to help them develop their family business.

Ms. Hieu and her family are a good example that motivates many local women to do business, increase their income, effectively contributing to poverty reduction in the locality.