By Rin Thour
My husband used to take care of and harvest cassava. When I wasn’t helping him, I stayed at home to take care of our children and a few chickens we had. We didn’t want more chickens or pigs because we knew that the animals could get diseased and cause us problems. Also, my family is poor, and we didn’t have the technical training needed to raise livestock. Our whole income depended on how hard we worked on the cassava plantation. Some years the production was low, which meant we had a low income and problems with food insecurity.
When Samaritan’s Purse began working in our village, they selected my family to be part of the agriculture and livestock programs. They provided us with technical training and gave us some materials, such as chicken and pig homes and seeds for vegetable and fruit trees. We started changing the way that we raised our chickens and got pigs. Now we have 50 chickens, and we sold them two times this year for $100. I also have a female pig who delivered 11 piglets recently. My family has a plan to increase our pig rearing in the hope that it will improve our living situation and that I can help my husband earn money.
I’d like to thank the staff of Samaritan’s Purse for visiting us at our home to guide and motivate my family to improve our lives.
More than a billion people worldwide are suffering from chronic malnutrition. Through your gifts, Samaritan’s Purse is providing lasting solutions through hands-on farming training, home garden projects, and practical education about nutrition, as well as desperately-needed food staples for hungry families in emergency situations.