Project Report
| May 9, 2014
Story From the Field - *Tida
(*Note: Names have been changed to protect the girls' privacy)
In 2010, Tida* was a slight, fearful and anxious girl who rarely spoke and always looked to the floor, averting others’ gazes. Her stepfather routinely beat her and her mother when he was drunk and kicked Tida out of their house. One month, he kicked her out 20 times. She could not sleep, had trouble eating and carried a chronic cough from untreated Tuberculosis. She had never been to school a day in her life.
Tida’s mother helped the family get along by traveling around Siem Reap and offering to
do people’s laundry and providing “cao gió,” a traditional Vietnamese medical
treatment in which the skin is scraped to produce light bruising and, as it is believed in
popular tradition, to release unhealthy elements from injured areas and stimulates
blood flow and healing. Tida’s stepfather took on odd jobs, just as fishing or driving
moto-taxis, when he wasn’t drunk, which wasn’t very often. Tida herself worked long
hours in the heat doing construction manual labor for $2 a day. With her frail body and
declining health, it was a wonder how she managed it.
One day Tida’s friend Dara* referred her to Senhoa’s social worker. Dara told us that her
friend desperately needed a safe job that would pay her more money to help out her
family and also a safe place to stay when her stepfather would kick her out of the family
home during one of his drunken rampages. Our social worker met Tida on a
blistering day in 2010 and it was determined that Tida was a good fit for our Lotus
House and Jewelry and Life Skills Training programs. Senhoa helped Tida receive
immediate medical care of her TB, she moved into the Lotus House and started training
to become a jewelry artisan at OOH, and the rest is history...
Today Tida is Senhoa’s top-paid artisan. Although she is somewhat slow in her work due
to her past trauma, she loves to make jewelry and the quality of her work is impeccable.
She is very diligent about creating high-quality work and is a talented designer. Her TB
has been treated, she has gained weight and appears more healthy and vibrant and has
started learning how to read and write Khmer. Tida now raises her head when she
speaks to others and exudes more confidence; she does very well in her Life Skills classes. She has since moved out of her abusive family home and now rents a room on her own. Tida wants her mother to move out of the house and stay with her, but her mother is reluctant to leave her husband. For now, Tida will continue to work hard and save money to be able to help her mother, hopefully someday soon.
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