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