Food security and income generation

Mushroom farmer Ham Sothy and her son Touch Vin in Kompong Chnang 1 Village. Photo credit: Kathy Oliver.

Cambodia

Partner: Banteay Srei

Funding sources: Morawetz Social Justice Fund, IWDA supporters and AusAID – Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP)

Issue: Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in Asia with one third of the population living in poverty. Lack of opportunities, particularly in rural areas, has resulted in many people, women and men, migrating to cities and neighbouring countries. With many men migrating, women are increasingly becoming single heads of households and have to manage child-raising, household work and paid work to supplement family income.

Outline: This program is building the capacity of women to improve the return on their labour by developing appropriate farming and small business management skills, and providing small business loans for income generation activities.

Impact: This year a total of 32 Community Facilitators participated in small business and marketing training. Training in chicken farming was provided for 187 participants including 144 women. Community meetings on establishing savings groups were held in 24 villages with 671 people (589 women) attending. Banteay Srei provided small grants to 200 families to participate in rice cooperatives and to 75 families to start businesses such as chicken farming, vegetable farming and planting extra rice crops during the dry season.

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