Than Wai Aung was a construction worker until 18 months ago, when he attended a training course that transformed his life.
Than Wai Aung at his mushroom farm in Ratchaburi.
The now 44-year-old left Myanmar 16 years ago and moved to Thailand, spending most of those years working on construction sites, building housing estates in the North and Bangkok.
Three years ago he visited relatives in Ratchaburi province, along the border with Myanmar. There he saw local people growing mushrooms for a living. He decided to move there and attend a mushroom growing class run by a Thai government agency.
“Construction work is very hard. And as I love to be with nature, growing mushrooms appeals to me,” Than said. “But it didn’t go well as a business during my first year. The local market in Ratchaburi was not big enough to sell my crops. My mushrooms rotted.”
Than moved back to Bangkok, where he spent a lot of time looking for a location on which he could grow mushrooms. He made sure he found markets where he could sell his products. He rented a small strip of land sandwiched between two fish ponds on the outskirts of Bangkok that was close to two markets.
This time, Than faced a different set of challenges — he could not produce enough to meet the demand, and didn’t know how to calculate his income and expenditure, making it difficult to save money.
That prompted him to attend a business management training course designed by the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s Community-Based Enterprise Development (C-Bed), and funded by the ILO/Japan Multi-bilateral Programme.
The innovative training programme for business start-ups teaches by sharing the experiences of other trainees, helped by facilitators who direct the sessions by asking appropriate questions and following the C-Bed modules provided by the ILO.
“I never knew that I had to charge for my time, and include things like petrol and car rental into my costs,” said Than, who used to rent a pickup truck to deliver his mushrooms to market for 300 baht a day.
“I have now learned to calculate my costs, to save money, and especially, to save my time.”
Than is not the only migrant worker to turn himself into an entrepreneur. C-Bed has worked with more than 40 partners in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos in the past two years. More than 1,600 people have received training on business development. Particularly well suited to marginalised and vulnerable communities, the C-Bed approach has helped rural migrants, displaced people, refugees and asylum-seekers, ex-combatants, people with disabilities, vulnerable women and people living with HIV/Aids, among others.
“The C-Bed-designed training tools are simple and practical,” said Sho Sudo, programme and operations specialist for the ILO/Japan Multi-bilateral Programme. “Ninety-four percent of those reached have never before had access to entrepreneurship or business development training opportunities, and the majority of small business owners report improvements in their enterprise”.
After attending the training course, held on the premises the National Catholic Commission on Migration (NCCM), one of C-Bed’s partners, Than stopped delivering his mushrooms. Instead, he asked his vendors to come and collect them from his farm. He dropped his prices, but saved on time and other costs, including truck rentals and petrol. He now spends the time saved tending his crops and earns about 20,000 baht a month.
“I used to work without a goal. Whatever I earned, I spent it,” Than said. He now uses his training, along with financial management software provided by the NCCM to digitally record income and expenses. “If you don’t know how to save, you will remain an employee. But I want to be an employer.”
Than is expanding his business. He has hired an additional worker, who is also a migrant from Myanmar. He wants to hire three more, and is also looking for a larger piece of land to enlarge his farm. His goal now is to double his production, which would have him producing 70-80kg of mushrooms every day.
“The training gave me a goal,” he said. “I can see that in two or three years time I will be an entrepreneur.”
