Siem Reap, KH – Poorest families helped by vegetable gardens – 22 Mar 2014

The Do Kong Family is a young couple blessed with one son. However, in New Peak Snaing Village they have been well known as one of the poorest families in the village.

Kong is a contract carpenter and farmer who earns very little, because field labor is only paid $2 per day and work isn’t always available.  Kong has had little opportunity to do anything other than work as a subsistence income level carpenter and rice farmer.  Rice farming is seasonal because it is planted during the rainy season, and then cultivated for several months until it is harvested.  Therefore, Kong has to save enough money and rice during the farming season to feed their family during the five months of dry season until the next harvest.

This year there was a large amount of flooding that destroyed his rice field.  Consequently, life has been very hard for the family.  They love their child with all their hearts and this love inspires them to work very hard to make their family’s life better.

After observing the Food Always In The Home (FAITH) gardens that the garden shop team had built with neighboring families, Kong sent his mother to meet Rey the shop manager.  He asked her to request help building a garden so that he could feed their family better.

Rey the garden shop manager and his team provided training and materials, and assisted Kong to build his garden.  He is now well supported when he works in his garden with mentoring visits from the shop team and his family members assisting him in the garden. Today his wife and mother are both helping maintain the family garden while he is preparing his rice field for the coming rainy season. The garden produces healthy and delicious organically grown gourds, long beans, sweat potato, eggplant, Chinese garbage, garlic, onion and lettuce.

The story of Kong has been an eye-opener and an education for the villagers about the benefits of adopting organic gardening as a means of supplying food and improving income.  Every day the garden is producing enough vegetables for his family, and he pays nothing for fertilizers or pesticides because the shop team taught him how to make them with natural materials.  The family now see more hope and a way to build a new life, through a combination of their hard work and the high productivity of the FAITH garden techniques.