I spent three days working as a videographer and photographer for the international NGO Kiva to document a series of case studies to show how their work providing with people with loans so they can buy energy-efficient ACE cooking stoves helps to improve their livelihoods.
I worked closely with the team at ACE who are based in Siem Reap. We filmed five case studies with a mixture of male and female loanees who have bought the stove to give a representation of their typical customers.
All of the people we interviewed said that the stove had helped them save money in terms of the fuel costs, which is particularly important as rural Cambodian continues to recover from Covid-19.
Other opinions included that Kiva’s loan product was well-structured and without being able to pay the loan back in installments, they wouldn’t have been able to buy the stove. Other benefits included the ease of use and the fact that it produces less smoke than conventional stoves which is better for their health and their houses don’t get covered in soot.
It’s a great initiative and it was great to see how the stoves had reduced people’s fuel costs to free up money for them to spend on other essential items. Hopefully the videos can be used as a marketing to encourage more people to provide more loans for good causes like this one.
To find out more about the type of loans Kiva offer and how to get involved, you can visit their website.
Below are some frames from the footage I shot. You can see some of the photographs I took here and for more of my work an NGO videographer, you can watch my reel here.
