Dreams do come true
Nan, 30 years old, mother of two daughters lives together with her family in a small village of Shan State. Her village is located 6 miles far away from the nearest town and it takes 45 minutes with a motorbike to travel to the town. Farming is the main source of income in her village, they mainly grow rice, corn, and sugar cane for a living. Her family also plants seasonal crops for their living. As a mother of two daughters, she needs to raise her children while doing household work and farming at the same time because her husband is a drug user and cannot support the family.
However, farming is not enough to support Nan’s family, she has to do extra work such as casual labor to support her family. She said, “As a casual laborer, I was hired for sugarcane cutting from January to May and for corn plucking from September to October. The main difficulty of my family is we do not have a stable income. We could only earn the money during the harvesting season. Since there is no farming work in the rainy season, we have no income and we are only able to consume seasonal foods, for example, bamboo shoots and mushrooms.” Life is difficult for her while struggling to eat daily food. She could not provide nutritious food and other needs for her children.
In 2019, World Vision Myanmar start implementing the Child Protection in Humanitarian Action (CPHA) project in Nan’s village. CPHA project is supporting direct assistance to the most vulnerable children who are at risk or subject to abuse, neglect, violence and exploitation due to the impacts of current crisis. One of Nan’s daughters was selected as a vulnerable child in the project. Since the beginning of the project, she has actively participated in the project activities such as child protection/child rights convention awareness sessions while involving in the events like parents’ meetings and training organized by World Vision Myanmar.
In March 2022, World Vision Myanmar staff visited Nan’s family and discussed the needs of her family. After a few days later the discussion, her family received basic food items like rice, oil, bean, cooking powder, oat, and noodles and she got a chance to repair her house with the support of the project. Before involving in the project, they stayed in a house with no shelter and cover, it is not appropriate for a family with children to live. Whenever it is raining, they had to stay with an umbrella and covered the holes with some plastic sheets. Children get wet due to the heavy rain and so they are afraid of the rain. However, after joining the project and her house was repaired with the support of the CPHA project.
She expressed, “I’m very happy because I don’t need to worry about the rain anymore. My daughter told me that they don’t need to be afraid of the rain. Now we have more space in our new house and children can stay and play in the house safely. We could save some money because of the food items supported by the CPHA project and be able to fulfill the other needs of our children. I was also able to purchase a motorbike to go to work and it is useful for my family’s transportation”.
Nan can now send her daughters to preschool and her husband stop using drugs due to the encouragement of the project staff and village leader. Her husband now starts working and supporting the family.
Nan said, “I will apply the knowledge which I received from the projects such as child rights and positive parenting on my daughters. I will maintain our house well and make good use of what I received from the project. My family get lots of benefits from the project, we improved not only our knowledge, but also the living standard. I am really thankful to Word Vision Myanmar and donors for their kind support and contribution to the community. I wish World Vision Myanmar to continue in supporting the lives of vulnerable children and families around the country.”
Nan's dreams come true with the help of the CPHA project and World Vision Myanmar.