Thanks to Heifer Cambodia, a Widow’s Life is Improving

Posted on August 20, 2012 by Heifer Cambodia

Story by: Chheang Sok Mao, Northwest Regional Program Officer

During the last three months, Khuon Sopheap’s family had earned increasing incomes as they increased their bamboo basket production. With help from family members — especially her aunt, Rath Tong — they have been able to meet market demand. Some incomes were generated from selling their chickens and the vegetables grown in their homestead garden that weren’t consumed by the family. From these incomes, Sopheap was able to save US $50 to buy a bicycle for transportation and driving her children to school.

It was vacation time for kids at public school. Understanding that kids in the community should get additional knowledge in Khmer and English writing, reading and math calculation during their two-month vacation, Mr. Eat Korn — a 22-year-old member of the local youth group — volunteered to run a class to help the community kids. He had provided the class two times a day: English courses in morning and Khmer courses in the afternoon.

“Sharing and Caring and Training, Education and Communication of Heifer’s 12 Cornerstones values have inspired me to teach these kids,” Korn said when asked why he voluntarily ran the class for the kids. He added, “I teach them not only how to read, write and do calculations, but also how to practice in sanitation, self hygiene, environmental care and so forth.”

Sopheap was very fascinated with the class as it was the opportunity to make her children’s dream come true in education. She encouraged and sent her youngest daughter Yoeun Sophort who studies at public school in grade 3 to attend this additional class. Sophort went to the class regularly and was always punctual. She is very smart in reading, writing and mathematics. Sopheap is very happy with good result of her daughter’s study.

Sopheap has kept taking good care of her two pigs. She expects they will get pregnant in the next few months, and then to have offspring to pass on to another needy family in the community. She also planted additional gingers in her homestead garden for additional income. With deeper understand about family health and environmental care, Sopheap decided to borrow US $75 from the group fund to buy cement, bricks, metal sheets and pipes to build a latrine.

“The amount of money borrowed from the group was not enough for the whole latrine construction,” said Sopheap. “We, therefore, needed to look for small trees and bamboos from the forest to use as posts and support columns of the latrine wall and roof. I feel more comfortable since having the latrine.”

Editor’s note: This post is part of a series that follows the progress of specific families, starting at the beginning of their work with Heifer. Today’s post is the third in a series of quarterly updates on the progress of Khuon Sopheap and her family.

Yoeun Sophort (front line, right) does her math calculation during the afternoon class provided by volunteer Eat Korn.

Khuon Sopheap works in her homestead garden. She plants gingers not only for home consumption, but also for sale for additional income.

Sopheap's son Yoeun Khol (yellow T-shirt), and her two nephews, Soeur Samoer (left) and Soeur Samai, help build latrine.

The latrine is completely built.

Sopheap buys a bicycle for transportation and driving her children to school.

Sopheap’s Story: A Widow Struggles for Family Life

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Casey Neese

Editor’s note: This post is part of a series that follows the progress of specific families, starting at the beginning of their work with Heifer. Today’s post is the second in a series of quarterly updates on the progress of Khuon Sopheap and her family. You can read the first post about Sopheap here.

by Heifer Cambodia

Ten months after joining the POG group, Ms. Khuon Sopheap has actively participated in group activities including monthly meetings, a savings program and attending literacy class. Through these technical and non-technical trainings, her knowledge and life skills have been improved while her attitude and behavior have been changed. She has shared what she learned with her family members and other villagers.

During the last four months, Sopheap and her family members keep practicing simple techniques in swine productions. With help from her daughters, Sophea and Sophort, she cleans the pen, troughs and the pigs before feeding them. She puts mosquito nets on the pen to protect the pigs from being bitten by mosquitoes that might affect the pigs’ health, which could lead to adverse weight loss. The family is happy to take good care of their pigs. So far, her family decreased buying commercial feed for feeding the pigs as its price goes up. Instead, the family increases using their local available resources including banana trees, morning glories and so forth for the pigs’ feed by applying knowledge they gained from the training. Moreover, Sophea and Sophort always spend their free time to find aquatic plants from the river as supplementary feed for the pigs. Now each pig is around 60 kilograms, and very healthy. Sopheap hopes she will receive the pigs’ offspring soon.

“Although my pigs do not yet give me income, I can see they are growing from day to day. I really hope they will become my family’s main resource of income when they produce piglets during the next few months. With the piglets I will be able to enhance my swine production,” Sopheap says.

After the flood destroyed her home garden late last year, her family now restores a plot of 15 square meters of land behind the house to grow varieties of vegetables for improving the family members’ nutrition. The family is more aware of sanitation and hygiene through keeping the household campus clean. Now all her family members regularly drink water that has first been boiled.

Sopheap is actively participating in group saving. Starting in June 2011, the total group fund increased up to 1 million Riels (US $250), of which 38,500 Riels belongs to Sopheap. Within this period, Sopheap is able to cash 18,500 Riels as voluntary savings.

“Participation in the group activities gives me huge benefits as we are able to help each other when we face any problem. We can take loans with a very low interest rate from our group to do small business or ease any difficulty in the family,” she says.

Story by: Chheang Sok Mao, Northwest Regional Program Officer
Contribution by: Prak Somathy, Communication and Networking Manager

Sopheap feeds her pigs. She puts mosquito nets on the pen to protect the pigs from being bitten by mosquitoes that might affect the pig’s health.

Shopeap works at her kitchen garden. She plants vegetables for improving her family members’ nutrition.

Her daughter Sophea boils water for the family members drinking.

A Widow Struggles for Family Life

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Heifer International

YouenSophea, Yoeun Sophaort, and Soeu Samai (Sopheap’s nephew) have lunch at theirkitchen.

by Heifer Cambodia

Anlong Sa — a poor rural village in Phnom Leap commune, Preahneth Preah district, Bantey Meanchey province — is inhabited by 146 families who rely on traditional agriculture (including rice and livestock), fishing and making bamboo baskets for their livelihood. However, the village faces many challenges including poor quality of agricultural products and services, natural disasters, lack of education and poor sanitation and hygiene. Low education and literacy are factors that lead to domestic violence while social norms put women in a lower status then men, and a lack of job opportunities lead to high migration for work and the problem of human trafficking and HIV/AIDS.

Khuon Sopheap, 42, is a poor widow in this village who has experienced a very hard life since her childhood after her mother died when she was 8 years old. Her father then married another woman and moved to live in another village, leaving her to live with her poor aunt Rath Tong (now 56 years old). Sopheap had no chance to attend school due to poverty. She got married to Muth Sa Oeun at age of 17 in the hope of building a happy family. However, her husband helped little in doing farming and earning income to support the household. He spent most of his time drinking alcohol and wasted the family property, plummeting the family into a worse situation. Sopheap divorced her husband in 2005 when he migrated to work as laborer in Thailand and took another wife there. A huge burden is laid on her shoulders as she has to take care of all children alone.

A mother of five children (four daughters and one son), Sopheap has struggled in earning income to feed her children, her aunt Rath Tong and three nephews. The household’s main source of income is from making bamboo and rattan baskets for sale. All her family members get involved in making the baskets for family income generation. However, after paying for some production materials including bamboos and metal wire, the family is able to earn only 115,000 Riels (about US $28.75) every three months from selling the baskets. Her family also owns one hectare of rice land. But rice yield can feed the family for only seven months after harvest. As income from bamboo and rattan baskets is not enough for support family life, her family has to borrow money from others and sell their labor.

“I have many children that rice yield on 1 hectare of land cannot feed us enough. We were poor in family planning as we did not know how to do birth spacing,” said Sopheap. Her family has not enough nutrition in their foods. Her family rarely has meat in their meals as they have no money to buy meat. They have fishes, fresh-water shellfish, snails or frogs that they catch from the field and river. For the family’s vegetables, Sopheap’s aunt Rath Tong picks morning glory and water lilies from the river and edible leaves from the jungle.

The family’s poverty and debt prompted her eldest daughter, Yoeun Chann (22), to drop out of study at grade 2 to help the family earn income. She got married to Che Rithih (27), who helps doing farming and catching fishes to feed the family. They now have an 8-month-old baby girl, Ruon Choeung.

Then because Sopheap had no money to support her children for scholastic materials, her second son, Yoeun Khol (20), and her third daughter, Yoeun Sopheap (17), stopped their study at grade 4 and grade 5 respectively. Currently, Khol has migrated to sell his labor in Thailand while Sopheap helps produce baskets and sometimes sells her labor in the crop harvest of other villagers.

“I don’t want my son to work in Thailand as he might be risky to any bad acts while staying far away from home,” said Sopheap. “However, after joining the group, I plan to enhance livestock production and grow vegetables so that my son and daughters will have jobs at home.”

“I am very sad that I cannot pursue my study,” said Sopheap, adding, “However, I want to be trained in sewing skill as a tailor in the future. With this career, I will be able to earn more money to take care of my poor mother.”

Because of the dire poverty of families like Sopheap’s, Heifer Cambodia implemented the “Community’s Empowerment and Environmental Protection Surround Tonle Sap Lake” project in July 2010. This project was launched in partnership with Cambodian Human Resource Development (CHRD), a local NGO. The project aims to improve income, promote environmental sustainability and involve the whole community in development activities. Twenty-five families were selected to receive piglets, horticulture seeds, fruit trees and other agriculture equipment along with training. In June 2011, Sopheap’s family was one of 25 additional families to be included in the project, and they received piglets and other resources through a Passing on the Gift™ ceremony in October 2011.

Sopheap takes good care of the piglets, keeping them healthy by applying simple techniques she gained from training. One piglet is fattened for sale in the next four months while another is raised for reproductive purposes. She gets up early each morning at 5:00, fetching water from the river, which is located about 50 meters from her house to clean the pigs and pen. Then she feeds them with help from her daughters (the pigs are fed three times a day, morning, afternoon and evening). She starts making bamboo baskets at 8 a.m. and continues her work until 8 p.m.

“I am so busy at my daily works from morning till night,” said Sopheap. “I sometime prepare foods, but sometime my daughters do it. Though I am busy, I allocate my time for attending literacy class, but not regularly because sometime I have to finish the baskets to sell for foods.” Sopheap has joined a group savings program. She puts 2,000 Riels (about US $0.5), in group saving every month. She has attended technical and non-technical trainings, including the 12 Cornerstones, animal husbandry and vegetable growing.

The family shares household chores. in the early morning, aunt Rath Tong brings along with her a packed lunch and goes to the jungle about two kilometers from the village to collect rattans for producing baskets. She returns home at 3 p.m. Sometimes she goes to catch fish with her fishing net, traps and hooks. She also has an old, small boat as a means to catch fish.

A flood hit Sopheap’s village last October and lasted until early November this year. Her vegetable garden was washed away while her rice stalks were completely destroyed by the flood. Her family had to work hard to restore everything after the floodwaters receded.

Sopheap’s other two daughters, Yoeun Sopea (13), and Yoeun Sophort (10) are currently studying at grade 3 in a primary school, which is located about 2 kilometers from the village. They have the afternoon class, lasting from 1 to 5 p.m. In morning before school time, Sophea and Sophort help their mother by cleaning animal pens, feeding pigs, cleaning the house, preparing lunch, and making the baskets.

Editor’s note: This post is part of a new series that follows the progress of specific families, starting at the beginning of their work with Heifer. Initially, this series will focus on our programs in Asia/South Pacific, where our colleagues have chosen one family in each region in the countries where we work and will bring us quarterly updates.