Wings to Make Dreams Come True

by Ma Li Wenbo, Yuan Gang
[Cambodia] Hoeung Chuntheang

For Mao Tith, a villager living in Svay Ampear in Cambodia, the rainy season used to be a dreaded time because his hut, built of bamboo with a thatched roof of palm leaves, could not keep the rain out. Whenever a thunderstorm struck, the family could only huddle together and pray it would be over soon.

However, the rain was also a good thing because when it rained, the large water tank outside their hut would become full and they would not have to fetch water from the village pond.

Mao Tith used to dream of living in a new house that was rainproof, would keep out insects and protect the children from being bitten, and was high enough to prevent the chickens from landing on the roof. He also wanted to grow pepper so that he could make a little more money. But in his heart, he knew it was just a dream.


Mao Tith's old shanty (left) and new home

New House Becomes Reality

To his surprise, one day, Mao Tith realized his dream might come true after all. It was August 2018 when a team of Chinese experts from the China-Cambodia Joint Project Management Office (JPMU) of the East Asia Poverty Reduction Demonstration Project came to visit him and asked a lot of detailed questions. Mao Tith gave them equally detailed answers, describing his life. They learned about his urgent needs.

"There are five people in my family," he told them. "My wife is 10 years older than I am. My daughter is working in Phnom Penh and we take care of her two children. The chickens we are raising often come inside our hut, turning it into a chicken coop. The most valuable thing in the hut is the light battery. I have to go to the fair every three days to charge the battery, and each time it costs 1,500 riel (USD0.37)."

The visitors took notes and decided on the assistance measures that would have to be made on the spot. These included rebuilding the hut, adding a toilet, and providing electricity and drinking water supply.

Looking at them, Mao Tith finally saw a glimmer of hope. He managed to raise USD350 and the JPMU funded another USD830 and eventually, there was enough money to rebuild the hut.

On October 25, finally a new house on a metal frame was ready. Looking at the windows with their sparkling glass panes and the rooms nearly two meters above ground, Maude could not believe his eyes.

His wife Cheng Loun was equally transfixed. For a long time she stood outside the house, admiring it.


The old shanty (left) and new home of a local resident

On November 29, a cement toilet was added to the new house. After another three months, Cheng Loun and other villagers received a cooking range and some cooking vessels from the community center.

Having solved Mao Tith's housing problem, the experts discussed how to help him increase his income when they revisited him. Mao Tith's relatives gave him a patch of land and the experts helped him grow millet pepper on it and raise cattle. He was also trained in vocational skills and the group arranged for his eldest daughter to work on a water supply project to increase their income.

The couple was moved, saying: "Growing pepper was our long-cherished dream. We will work hard. Thank you, Chinese brothers and sisters, for helping us!"

When the group was leaving, Mao Tith gave them jackfruits and bananas to show his gratitude. When they initially didn't want to take the fruits, thinking it would squeeze his income, Mao Tith went to the village chief, saying, "These experts don't like us anymore." Realizing it would be ungracious to refuse such a sincere gesture, the Chinese experts each ate a banana, making the couple beam in satisfaction.

Survey Before Help

The JPMU monitored many more Cambodian families like Mao Tith's.

In August-September, when it is scorching hot in Cambodia, a group of Chinese experts from the JPMU project came to work in Svay Ampear. They were visibly suffering in the heat. Still they worked resolutely from door to door, wearing long-sleeved clothes and the karma, the traditional Cambodian check scarf, to protect themselves from the blistering sun. The sight of the Chinese experts working so hard in the houses that were like steamers with the heat moved the villagers and won the trust of Cambodian officials.

Previously, the Chinese experts had held meetings with the village officials to discuss farmers' livelihoods and the feasibility of environmental projects for the latter. The local officials had proposed many plans but the township had not conducted a survey on the precise situation of the impoverished households.


Chinese experts during a field survey

"Let's do that so that we know the situation there," the Chinese project leader said.

The survey work was hard and detailed. The experts visited all the families in the village and asked for information, then counted, registered and checked it carefully, leaving out no family. The information that the expert group needed about every household included their half-year income and expenditure, any land they owned,business operation, whether they intended to run any business, the number of children, whether the children go to school, their tuition fees, the number of family members of working age, how often did their children working in other places return home, and the health conditions of family members.

During the survey in the two project villages, the expert group carried a large sheet of blank paper. A week later, the villages, villagers' houses, and the names of family members had been marked on the white paper in different colors. The names were also written in Chinese. The paper was then put up in a prominent place in the office of the expert group.

After arduous visits and surveys, the group finally got a clear understanding of the situation. There were 136 impoverished households in the two villages, and the main causes of poverty were: severe lack of clean drinking water and food security problems (due to lack of irrigation water, unsuitable planting techniques and crop varieties, lack of money to buy food, excessive population growth); dilapidated houses and homelessness in some cases; inability to pay about USD200 to get electricity connection and use public lighting; a large number of landless poor households; relying on firewood as the basic source of energy.

After learning what the situation was like, the expert group began their targeted work. They built toilets for 100 poor households; 82 poor households were given electricity connection; 500 households each got a set of cooking range and kitchen utensils; 42 poor households had new houses; and renovation of the houses of 178 households began. This greatly improved the living environment of the villagers and their quality of life.

As a Chinese proverb goes, instead of giving a man fish to eat for a day, it is better to teach him how to fish so that he can feed himself for life.


A toilet built for a poor household; A villager receives a stove

Based on the information they collected, the experts analyzed the causes of poverty in each impoverished household to devise targeted measures, coordinate resources, and develop a detailed assistance plan for each household.

For example, an impoverished villager named Lim Saroeun possessed some land in addition to some open space around his house. The experts advised him to grow pepper and develop a courtyard economy. They taught him how to loosen the soil, weed, water and fertilize. In addition, the JPMU also helped his family rebuild their house and kitchen, add a cowshed, and plant 50 sq m of forage grass to raise the cattle.

Another impoverished villager, Samkhan, wanted to become self-supporting and improve his life. The JPMU gave him USD300 and helped him open a grocery. Shangshen bought daily necessities and snacks from wholesale shops in towns and sold them in his community, augmenting the family's income by USD60-120 every month.

Like Lim Saroeun and Samkhan, dozens of other impoverished households also received assistance with their businesses.

Something unexpected happened after the new houses were built.

That day, crowds of people could be seen outside. The villagers stood talking excitedly outside their new houses. However, they hesitated to go in. The experts wondered what was wrong. Were they dissatisfied? Did they have any complaints?

It turned out that the villagers were thinking they should first get the Chinese experts' permission to move into the new houses built by them.

The experts were touched, realizing this was the villagers' recognition of their work and their way of showing respect. They immediately explained to the crowd that they had been remiss in not making it clear that the new houses were the villagers'. "No one needs to get permission. As long as you are satisfied, you can move in any time," they said.

Hearing this, the villagers' faces lit up.

Lenjandi's Two Trips to Phnom Penh

Lenjandi is the eldest child of her parents and the only breadwinner of the family.

Like many young people, she yearned to see the outside world and work in Phnom Penh, the capital. But she didn't have any vocational skills.

She tried to look for training opportunities, but faced with a multitude of courses in Phnom Penh, couldn't decide what to study. Also, the tuition fees were astronomically high.

She had no choice but to go back to her village in disappointment. When she saw the new houses built with the help of the JPMU, at first, she was as happy as the other villagers but soon, her mood darkened as she began to wonder if she was destined to stay on in the village and be a farmer for the rest of her life, like her parents. She also wondered if she would have to wait for others to build her a new house, like it was with her parents.

But Lenjandi's distress disappeared soon when a vocational skills training program funded by the JPMU was officially launched for the villagers at the community center.


A training session in progress at a community center

She underwent training with 80 other villagers from the two project villages. After doing research on the labor market, the JPMU organized training sessions by Chinese bakers in Phnom Penh, officials of the Department of Agricultural Economy at the Ministry of Agriculture and Development, and experienced local domestic workers. The training included entrepreneurial thinking, cooking, household management, garbage disposal and making Chinese pastry. Four hundred copies of training materials were printed and distributed to trainees. The focus was to strengthen practical skills and cultivate their professional quality so that they meet job requirements.

As Lenjandi and the other villagers put on their cook's cap and apron, they looked excited, cherishing the opportunity. After the training, she not only became skilled in using her ingredients but also realized that to be a pastry maker, she needed to follow the procedures strictly and be meticulous and diligent. In the end, she passed the assessment and received a certificate.

Lenjandi went to Phnom Penh with her certificate, which bolstered her confidence. Providentially, a large Chinese restaurant was recruiting pastry bakers and she got the job.

During the training, the Chinese expert group contacted Chinese-funded enterprises in Phnom Penh and immediately after the course, six trainees were hired by bakeries, Chinese restaurants and beauty salons.

These wonderful stories are far from being over in Cambodia. Learning from China's experience in poverty reduction, the JPMU found the most suitable method for poverty reduction in the project villages in Cambodia. They empowered the local people in their pursuit of a happy life and sowed the seeds of Sino-Cambodian friendship in their hearts.

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Project Overview:

At the ASEAN, China, Japan and Republic of Korea (10+3) Leaders' Meeting on November 13, 2014, China proposed the East Asia Cooperation Initiative on Poverty Reduction. It also provided RMB100 million (USD14.12 million) to launch a rural poverty reduction program and establish East Asian cooperation demonstration projects on poverty reduction.

In 2015, the Chinese government decided to cooperate with Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar to carry out technological assistance projects for the demonstration projects. In February 2017, China and Cambodia signed the project implementation agreements and in July, the resident Chinese expert team of the Sichuan project center began to assist Svay Ampear and anoth- er village in the Svay Ampear commune of Mukh Kampul District, Kandal Province, Cambodia. The three-year project will be completed on July 30, 2020.

Based on China's experience in entire-village and targeted poverty alleviation, the Chinese team analyzed the causes of poverty in the project villages and worked out corresponding measures that would work in local conditions. To address the root causes of poverty and meet the needs for development, the following were planned and designed:

1. Infrastructure: building a new water supply station to supply drinking water to the two project villages;

2. Public services: building a community center to provide office, training, and cultural exchange platforms for the communities involved;

3. Environmental improvement: based on the living conditions of impoverished households, constructing toilets and providing electricity connection and wood-saving stoves, rebuilding and renovating villagers' houses and other projects;

4. Livelihood improvement: implementing planting, breeding and processing projects;

5. Capability enhancement: providing training on project management to improve poverty reduction capability; carrying out practical technique and skills training to improve production capacity and work skills;

6. Technical assistance: dispatching Chinese resident experts and short-term experts to cooperate with Cambodia on project research, baseline survey, and monitoring and evaluation, and jointly advancing implementation and management of the projects.