Empower 325 Cambodian Families to be Self Reliant

Executive summary

The report has focused on the progress of activities, problems, solutions, and achievements in terms of chicken and pig raisings, vegetable growing, and saving component of CBOs in eight villages, Damrey Pong commune, Chhaung district, Kratie province, Cambodia.  

Activities and achievements

In the last report there were needed improvements of all CBOs in all villages to have a better way of functioning. In response, in Brahout village, the Chicken group, Fish group, and Vegetable group were restructured to become only one Group with only three elected committee members and 23 members (in total 26 people, 12 women), called a Self Help Group. The committee members were Mr. Sun Sokchea, group coordinator, Mr. Thean Mao, group representative 1, and Mrs. Than Soklin, group representative 2. All new committee members have committed to work harder in order to improve the livelihood conditions for their members. All group members were happy to change from three groups to become only one which they expect to have better management and let them more time to do their work. According to the proposal of the new group, the project team has approved to release a USD 200 grant for supporting the saving component of this brand new group.    

Chicken raising activities of the Self Help Group (SHG) in Kroach village were similar to the previous report in terms of delayed construction of fences around chicken houses as they have not yet finished harvesting cassava. However, on average 3 chickens were eaten per household per month and 2 chickens were sold per month. For one case, Mr. Teng Vanny, 50 years old, a group member of the SHG in Kroach village, said that his family ate 16 chickens and sold 11 chickens which allowed them to earn an amount of 198,000 riels ($49.5). Pig raising activities were going well with 10 households conducting the activity, but two other households decided not to raise pigs due to the lack of water for the pig production. In terms of vegetable growing, most of the households produced vegetables for their own consumption only.

Chicken raising and vegetable growing group members in other villages were quite similar to Kroch village. However, few members could have a vegetable production not only for their own consumption but also for earning a surplus income. As a good example, Mrs. Soy Sophat produced vegetables to support her four family’s members with 15 kg per month and at the same time she earned an income of 100,000 Riels per month. Through following up the chicken and pig raising activities of group members, it was decided that the improvements needed are mainly on feeding and vaccination.

The saving components of the Kroach village group showed that the group is doing much better in terms of making loans and repaying them back than other groups in other villages. So restructuring small groups to become SHGs was the right solution and will be needed to be done in other villages.

Links:

• http://www.crdt.org.kh/