Seventeen years ago, Pathana Panyathip decided to give her children a gift that would pay dividends forever—a high-quality education. Since she couldn’t find a suitable school, she started her own. In 2001, the Early Years Centre opened its doors in Vientiane, the capital city of Lao People’s Democratic Republic.
As the children progressed from grade to grade, she searched for ways to expand her school. But funding was continually a problem. “Although it was challenging to decide the right curriculum, find high-quality teachers, source appropriate resources and identify good locations to set up new campuses, the biggest and most stressful obstacle was financing,” says Panyathip.
In a small country like Lao PDR, the dearth of capital is a common roadblock for owners of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Women face an even higher hurdle because they often lack collateral, and lenders therefore perceive them as riskier and less-profitable clients. Typically, female entrepreneurs like Panyathip must use their own limited savings or approach informal sources for funding. This hampers their initiative’s growth potential.
Panyathip persevered. After exhausting her own savings and selling her assets, she secured a loan in 2011 from IFC client Banque Franco Lao (BFL). This helped her establish a better-resourced Early Years Centre along with a shared primary/secondary campus. Subsequent loans, paired with the bank’s guidance on growth, helped the school expand even further. Within just five years, she established four new campuses in Vientiane and a new campus in Savanakhet province
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