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Siem Reap, KH – Mother’s gift to her children is food and education – Feb 2023

Providing Food and education to Ra children as a single mother is the thing that Ra called achievement. Since her husband Chea went to prison, she had difficulties to raise and send her children to school.

Maintaining Food Always In The Home (FAITH) garden at home is one she called achievement because she earn some extra incomes from selling their surplus for a good price and help sustain the need of the children and grand children as their products are free from chemicals. Ra gardening was temporarily disrupted during the the time her husband Chea was arrested by police men few years ago. The second time was when first reported COVID-19 community transmission case in 2020, as the local market, where Ra’s vegetables are usually sold,was temporarily closed. However, the market soon re-opened and Ra re plant her garden. With this achievement Ra proudly shared the tactic to keep her vegetables grow well and fast. “It is about rotation with different crops. If we grow one type of vegetable many times on the same piece of land, our vegetable will not grow well. We must rotate,” she repeated with a big smile on her face.

Ra says “my family garden gave me inspiration during the difficult time”. The garden’s benefits include promoting healthy eating habit and exercise habit as well as family bonding and stress relief.
Planting , watering and chopping soil are all great ways to help children develop skills and can increase their environmental awareness. Most important, is garden is source of our food for the kids and amazingly extra income to give my children a pocket money to go to school.

Ra has list of challenges since her husband was in jail. Raising 4 children alone, it physically and mentally very difficult. Gardening with kids is not always easy. Young children can be eager and excited. Weeding out good plants along with the bad. Another challenge is animals from neighbours can be destructive to the vegetable.

Ra dream is to pass on the FAITH garden knowledge to her children and grand children, and to see her children educated and earning an income when she become old.