This project was established in 2004 in Kien Svay district with financial assistance from Women’s International Group. In 2007, it was supported by the Direct Aid Programme of the Australian Embassy in Cambodia.
The beauty skills training courses teach rural poor girls and women a variety of beauty skills, including hairdressing, hair-curling, hair cutting, cosmetology and manicure. Each course lasts 6 months and allows 20-25 trainees to attend.
The purpose of the project is to create sustainable development by providing the women and girls with income-generating employment and self-employment, helping to improve their standard of living, and helping to prevent the girls and women falling into prostitution.
The results and impacts of the project are similar to the sewing skills training courses (above):
• Several hundred poor girls and women living in rural areas got access to beauty skills classes, obtained income-generating skills and received both employment and self-employment;
• The girls and women avoided having to move away from their home villages to find a job, thereby avoiding the risks of HIV/AIDS, human trafficking, sexual harassment, rape and prostitution;
• Sustainable development: the girls’ and women’s newly acquired skills allowed them to receive regular income to feed their families and pay for school fees of their children, sisters and brothers and to be used for health care and for other purposes, such as participating in community development.