Battambang, KH – Pig loan profit needed for home improvement – 29 May 2015

The MY Family live in the Battambang Province of Cambodia where the father and mother farm and fish to make a living. They have 6 children of which 5 attend school. Many nights they end up working from dawn to dusk in order to put food on the table and send their children to school.

The family are the first members of the Food Always In The Home (FAITH) organic vegetable garden program in Cambodia, having built their garden in 2012. The family teamed up with the local vegetable garden shop managed by Rey Diez, along with visitors Michael Oliver ( Better Lives coordinator) and Chris Jenkins ( volunteer ) to build their challenging garden. It was challenging because the garden area beside their home was once a brick factory, which meant the team would have to remove pieces of brick when breaking up the ground. However, while taking breaks from this tough work, the shop team and visitors were warmly cared for by the family with fresh coconut juice and delicious local cooking.

The garden became a good example to the community because everyone passing by stopped to enjoy looking at it. The Morning glory, lettuce, bitter gourds, and taro were all bright green and productive. MY is a good planter and was able to earn US$5 to US$10 each time he harvested the vegetables.

MY qualified for a pig loan in 2014 because of his consistently good quality garden and the love that he and his wife have for their children. He used the loan to buy two piglets for fattening to sell.

MY sold the pigs after 5 months of fattening for US$400 and immediately repaid the loan and interest.  The family used the earnings to buy school materials for the children, improve their home’s roof, and build a simple toilet.

Since February 2015, the family has faced the challenges of a severe drought in the Battambang Province that has impacted many farmers’ crops.

A number of years ago, the government built small canals through some villages to improve water access for the local people.  For political reasons, the government has recently stopped ensuring that water can flow through these canals. One of these canals is behind the MY family home, and it has dried up because of no rain or government aided water supply. Most families now have to travel 10km to the nearest town with piped water in order to buy drinking water.

As expected the lack of water as effected the quality of the area’s vegetable growing. This disappoints the family greatly because the garden contributes to their food supply and income. With rains anticipated to arrive soon, MY wants to build the garden back up to its former quality so that that he can harvest nutritious vegetables for his family.

While he waits for the rains, he has requested another pig fattening loan from Healthy Life Reinforcement vegetable garden shop because his immediate dream is to improve their home so that the family can sleep comfortably.  He is targeting to earn approximately US$250 from selling the pigs and plans to put this towards improving their home.