To help people like Phally, Micro Rainbow International, a non-profit organisation which aims to lift lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people out of poverty, has set up a crowdsourcing platform to help individuals boost their income and economic opportunities.
Poverty eradication is one of the new global development goals agreed by world leaders last month but there is no specific mention of sexual minorities and the global extent of poverty among this group is little known due a lack of data. The 27-year-old gay man would like to expand his small business to sell chicken wings and desserts.īut it has been impossible to get a loan, adding to a long list of problems he is facing in his native Cambodia, where discrimination against sexual minorities is deep-rooted and anecdotal evidence suggests many gays live in poverty. PHNOM PENH, Oct 16 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Phally barely scrapes together enough money to survive by selling fried papayas on the streets of Phnom Penh.
