Rural Assistance Program Prey Veng (RAP), Cambodia

Rura l Assistance Program update – May 2018

Sdao Kong Village, Baphnom District, Prey Veng Province:

Kagna (age 31) and her husband have four children ages of 1 year to12.  Their home is a corrugated steel shack set on a 500 square meter plot of homestead. They also own a small (2,000 square meters) rice field which is located far from their home.  Mark visited the family on April 22 of this year and took the photos you see below. 

 Their farm does not yield enough food and income to support his family of six, so  Kagna’s husband works as a construction laborer in Phnom Penh where he earns about  $6 a day. 

 Kagna’s family has long struggled with  an unreliable water supply. Like many other farmers, they have  relied on the hand dug pond in which they store rain water. Unfortunately, that pond often goes dry before the end of each annual dry season.  To insure them a source of water during the dry season and to help them advance beyond growing only a single annual crop of rainy season rice, this year we are providing the family a well with sponsorship from the Elementary School students of the American School in Tokyo.  (In the photo Kagna and two of her four children stand in front of their new well.  The concrete well pad has not yet been installed but the well functions and provides them with precious water for drinking, cooking, hygiene and small scale irrigation.) 

 During Mark’s visit to the farm together with our local partners, a plan was made to send our Green Champions team of six local high school students to the home on April 29.  The Green Champions’ assignment was to plant multipurpose trees and fruit trees around the perimeter of Kagna’s small homestead plot.  Our hope is that those trees will improve the family’s living environment, renew the depleted soil and, when the newly planted mango trees start to bear fruit, launch them on a path toward earning a more sustainable livelihood from their tiny farm through diversification into raising fruits and vegetables in addition to their annual rice crop

Below are photos of our Green Champions team and two staffers of MDA as they worked on April 29 to plant multipurpose trees (to promote soil renewal) and fruit trees (for nutrition and income) around Kagna’s dry and dusty homestead. 

 The new well will change this family’s life.  It will help Kagna’s family to supplement their poor diet and add to the income from their rice crop with nutritious fruits and vegetables.  Easy access to clean, safe water also makes cooking, cleaning and personal hygiene much easier for every member of the family. 

Your support of our project allows us to bring real change to this and other families by helping them to work smarter and harder .

Thank you for your support.

Barbara & Mark Rosasco 

Our Green Champions project, a part of our Rural Assistance Program in rural Prey Veng Province, Cambodia was begun in 2012 as a way to promote tree planting along dusty roads in our target area.  From the beginning we have enlisted the participation of students from the district high school to do the work of starting tree nurseries and then transplanting the seedlings to a treeless stretch of a rural which runs through the core of our target area.  

This year our Green Champions team consists of two girls and three boys.  All of them are in grade 11 at Baphnom District High School.  This year, in addition to tending to the trees along the road which was first planted in 2012 and extended in 2014 and 2015, the team will embark on an ambitious plan to plant trees along a one kilometer stretch of an entirely new road which is being made through our RAP target area.

In the photo labeled 2018 Project, our team stands on a newly built road which they aim to line with tree seedlings through the course of this year.  The work of transplanting seedlings along the new road will begin at the start of the next rainy season in late May/early June.

Since the initiation of our Rural Assistance Program in early 1999 it has been our practice to load up our vehicle withhundreds of small baguette loaves before departing from Phnom Penh in the morning.  Bread is not available in the villages of our target area so it is a special treat for the children there.  In the photo above we can see some faces of children patiently waiting for the distribution of the bread.  In the photo below, our local partner (wearing glasses and standing in the middle of the crowd of kids) leads the children in a kind of salute to bread. 

Although these children are very young, we feel that this kind of small community involvement, and a bit  fun ,  has made local farmers and their children gradually more aware of us and our programs. Of course, everyone loves a small treat, but beyond that it allows for some casual discussion and interaction and who knows when and how the spark of interest may arise in how to be a better eco citizen.

It is important to keep in mind that it is estimated that only about 40% of all Cambodian students even attend high school, and only a small  percentage  graduate. The little ones in the photo, shown  in their soiled shirts have a long way to go to achieve the knowledge and work ethic that our Green Champion team members, all high school students,  display. But, as the saying goes, all journeys begin with the first step, no matter how small.

Your contributions and support of this program, can impact these young lives, teaching them how to be better stewards of the land, encouraging them to stay in school, providing their fathers and  mothers ( we have 18 female farmers in our program)  with better farming skills for hopes of higher income standards and better access to water.  Your support directly impacts their local eco-system and potentially, every aspect of their daily lives. 

We are grateful to you all for your generous support of our efforts. 

Barbara & Mark Rosasco