Plantation project helps send kids to school
Pakngar village is surrounded by beautiful mountains and forests in the district of Sepone, Savannakhet province.
People here live on farms, mainly planting rice and cassava, both of which provide income to support their children’s schooling.
Nam, a 52-year-old father of 4, also focuses on growing rice and cassava with his family.
“My family used to survive on slash and burn to grow rice, but some years that harvest wasn’t enough to feed everyone. We then relied on the sale of natural resources like bamboo or wild foods we found in the forest for income. We couldn’t afford our children’s schooling,” Nam says.
His eldest son, Thoun, who dropped out of school at age 14, recently got married. Nam still supports the younger children: sons, 8-year-old Oum and 7-year-old Am, who study in primary school, and his 6-year-old daughter Anh who is in kindergarten.
“Sometimes we got upset for having to help our parents work on the farm and for having to wear very old uniforms to school. I dreamed of having a new uniform and wearing it to school like my friends,” Oum says.
From 2013 to 2014, World Vision Sepone’s Area Development Programme and the District Rural Development and Poverty Eradication debuted agriculture activities to help communities overcome the lack of food. Families saw an income increase through a pilot cassava plantation project and the provision of cassava seeds to 69 families in three villages.
From 2014 to 2015, a second round of activities was launched with 30 participating families in Nam’s village. His family benefited from the cassava plantation, “I received 80 bunches of cassava seedlings that can grow on one hectare of land,” Nam says.
“We started growing cassava in March and harvested from November to January. On one occasion last year, I sold one tone of cassava for 800,000kip (US$100) and had a total of 7,000,000kip to 8,000,000kip (US$875 to US$1000) for the whole year. This was very good income for our family as we could use the money to support our children’s schooling, their uniforms, and materials,” Nam says.
“Today, my family’s living conditions have improved. My children get the same opportunity as other children to get an education. We also have some money saved to build a new house,” he added.
“Now, I have a new uniform that is like my friends who go to school. We continue to work to help our parents on the weekend but are not upset like we used to be. I am very happy that we will have a new house,” Oum says.
“I plan on expanding our land so that I can sell more and save money to support our children in higher studies, like secondary school or college. My dream is for them to learn a lot and get a good job so they can help themselves in the future,” Nam says.