Khemara selects women in the villages surrounding Phnom Penh to attend skills development training. After a training which takes from 3 to 9 months, the women obtain credit to found a business. Training and technical support to the women continue throughout. Our training includes: weaving, crafts, retail business training, restaurant business, food processing, printing, computer training and office management. The program involves over 300 women.
The success of the program are:
Khemara House is a retail outlet where staff are trained in running a retail outlet and are prepared for setting up and running their own small scale business in Phnom Penh. This outlet is not only a successful training center, but also acts as a marketing outlet for other Khemara business products and for crafts producers from all over Cambodia. It also does small scale exports.
Khemara House is a living cultural museum. Visitors to Khemara House can see silk ikat weaving from the dyeing through to the weaving. Visitors can sample simple Cambodian cuisine and enjoy the relaxed, cool refuge provided by the garden and the ambiance. Children can play in the garden. After seeing the silk being woven upstairs the products made of silk, silk cloth, baskets, silver and other Cambodian crafts can be purchased.
The program provides marketable skills for women, ensures their
skills in business management and prepares women for ownership
of their business. Khemara staff train the women and are in turn
trained by outside consultants. The goal of Women in Business
is to ensure the economic and social empowerment of women.