A daughter-in-law from Nghe An with the determination to realize her dream of doing business

Born and raised in Hong Ngu, Dong Thap province, due to her family's economic conditions, Ms. Hai Yen soon chose her own path, which was to go to Malaysia to work. During her years working abroad, she had the chance to meet and fall in love with a guy from Nghe An. From liking each other, then falling in love, the two became husband and wife. Her husband is Mr. Nguyen Trong Khac from Xuan Tuong commune (Thanh Chuong).

In 2012, she followed her husband to Nghe An to become a daughter-in-law. Recalling those days, Ms. Yen reminisced: “At first, I could not imagine what the climate in the Central region was like, what the people, customs and habits were like. The first time I went to my husband’s house was also the first time I set foot in Nghe An. Although there were many difficulties, I gradually fell in love with this land.”

Mr. Nguyen Trong Khac and his wife, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hai Yen. Photo: Ngan Hanh

Not long after getting married, due to difficult economic circumstances, her husband, Nguyen Trong Khac, had to leave his young wife and continue to work abroad to earn more income, while she stayed in her hometown with her young child. Coming to be a daughter-in-law in a foreign land, she was initially confused about many things: unfamiliar customs and habits, harsh climate conditions, difficult new life, and not having her husband by her side. Those were not small challenges for her. Being a hard-working, diligent, and resourceful person, Yen quickly overcame the initial difficulties to both take on the role of a mother and take care of her husband's family.

Every morning, Yen followed her mother-in-law to the market to sell noodles, and in the afternoon she came back to help her family with farming and raising livestock. She overcame all hardships and quickly mastered farming, trading, and raising livestock. Loved by her husband's family and neighbors, she somewhat eased her longing for her husband, her family, and her maternal hometown thousands of kilometers away. However, after 2 years of living on the market and river water in her husband's hometown, life was still difficult. In 2014, she had to hold back her tears, leave her young child to her grandparents, and continue to work abroad.

In 2018, an incident happened to the couple's family. Her father-in-law passed away, the family lost a pillar of both economic and spiritual strength. That same year, Yen and her husband returned to the country to take care of the family. Back home, the couple always wondered what to do, how to develop the family economy, because farming was not enough to take care of life. She said, one time when she went to the supermarket, she bought dried sticky rice as a gift for her child, seeing that her child praised it as delicious, being skillful, she tried to make it at home, surprisingly the result was successful. From this small gift, Yen nurtured the idea of ​​a dried sticky rice production line, and that idea always lingered in her mind.

By herself, learning from the internet and through practical experiments, Ms. Yen spent half a year perfecting her own recipe for producing dried sticky rice. She continuously tried many different recipes, doing them over and over again to get the most satisfactory results.

Once they were confident about the product quality, the couple discussed investing more than 300 million VND in a system of machinery to produce dried sticky rice. The dried sticky rice products of Ms. Yen and her husband have a certain position in the market. Not only consumed in the province, Ms. Yen has expanded 3 more distributors in the provinces of Hai Duong, Nam Dinh and Vung Tau. In 2022, she will expand 6 more distributors in Hanoi, Phu Tho, Nam Dan, Do Luong, Quang Binh, Binh Duong...

In 2021, Ms. Yen was awarded a Certificate of Merit by the Women's Union of Nghe An province for her outstanding achievements. Photo: CSCC

Ms. Yen spoke at the 29th Congress of Thanh Chuong District Women's Union. Photo: CSCC

Yen's business model is expanding, and many women in the village have more jobs. When the idea first emerged, the few people who joined her were all neighbors. Up to now, Yen's production facility has created jobs for 10 workers, all of whom are women. In particular, she always cares about female workers who are not physically fit to work far away, and those who are over working age, to help them earn extra income right at home.

By early 2021, Ms. Yen discussed with her husband to continue developing more products bearing the mark of her hometown. That is the yellow sticky rice wine. She invested 1.3 billion VND to equip a closed wine production line, ensuring food hygiene and safety. To save costs and increase profits, she implemented a model of wine making combined with animal husbandry, using wine residue as feed for a herd of nearly 100 pigs. This production process helps save on animal husbandry costs, thanks to which the model is highly effective.

Thanks to her creative thinking in production and business, daring to think and do, success came to her. In recognition of that achievement, in 2019 and 2020, Ms. Yen won the district-level women's startup idea award. Her model was visited by many delegations to learn from her experience, and she personally went to report on typical women in the whole province. In 2021, she was awarded a Certificate of Merit by the Women's Union of Nghe An province for her outstanding achievements.