Siem Reap, KH – Savun’s daughter and granddaughter enjoy their banana and vegetable garden – 31 Oct 2022

Savun really missed his family time when he was separated from them. Now that they are reunited in their Rent-to-Own home he believes that gardening is a great family activity that promotes family closeness. Planning, sowing, and tending to a family’s Food Always In The Home (FAITH) vegetable garden are activities with a shared purpose of feeding all the family. Working together on a meaningful project like this strengthens and reinforces the family bonding. Since the family have been reunited, Savun’s daughter has used the garden to teach her children responsibility and to give them a sense of accomplishments when they harvest the vegetables. Savun dreams of seeing his grand children growing up as healthy, responsible and productive members of the community.

The availability of fresh vegetables is helping sustain the children’s proper health and nutrition status, because of continuous sufficient supply of fresh vegetables everyday. The organic grown vegetable garden not only strengthens the children’s health, it also reduces food consumption expenditure by 45%.

The FAITH gardens have been crucial to safeguarding household food security during the challenging COVID time in Cambodia, and when erratic weather conditions like floods or drought hit the region. Flooding is the most challenging because families cannot do anything to stop the flooding, while watering can protect the gardens during a drought.

When crops fail due to these conditions, many families do not have enough food to eat and the children go to school hungry. Thanks to the FAITH garden program, the Rent-to-Own home (RTO) families have enough food to eat during COVID and erratic weather conditions. This program is particularly important as it empowers families to improve nutrition at home, make their food supply more resilient, and earn extra income with a market vegetable garden.