Battambang, KH – Improved home and solar light helps children study – 30 Nov 2017

YY is very happy because she believes that her efforts to save money to help Sokny and Sophy’s education is paying off, because both grand-children are in the upper half of their classes. She believes that the home improvements and solar light she saved up for have helped them by making it more comfortable and easier to study and read at night.

Sokny is 13 years old and in grade 6 at Kdol primary school, where she is in a class of 35 students, and Sophy is age 9 years old in grade 4 at the same school in a class of 37.

Life for the family has been much better since they started their first vegetable garden in 2013, which led to her increasing her income by qualifying for a piglet loan and selling fattened pigs. This increased income has enabled the family to pay the grand-children’s school fees, add a concrete floor, an extension and solar light to their home and also purchase chickens to raise.

YY and her husband have recently been pursuing ways to earn more income.

She is planting corn and beans on a small farm that is three hours travel from her home, which her older children left for her when they went to work in Thailand. Water is a challenge, so she plants her the corn and beans when there is sufficient rain. She visits the farm once or twice a month during the corn and bean growing months of February, March and May, staying for up to three days at a time.

Her husband started experimenting with raising fish two months ago, after he saw a neighbor raising fish with the help of an NGO called Harvest. It is an USAID supported project that assists families with half of the costs of raising fish, Harvest pays for the fish while the families pay for the feed. The type of fish that are grown requires changing the water once a week and using special feed.

YY’s husband has also been planting some vegetables in a garden by their home, which they can expand now the rains are coming.

The family hopes that the corn, bean and fish will enable them to increase their income further, and help them to get closer to their dreams of building a new house and funding the children’s study at high school and university.