Friday, May 29, 2009

Helping at Home

By Nguyen Thi Hong Phuong, ChildFund Vietnam
and David Hylton, Christian Children's Fund

This is the second in a series of blog entries detailing the day in the life of Nam, an 11-year-old boy in Vietnam. After a morning at school, Nam returns home to help out his family. His fathers offers an insight to how Christian Children’s Fund and ChildFund Australia have made a difference in their lives.

Noon
Nam returns home. His parents have just returned from field work. Nam helps his mother to prepare lunch. Sipping tea, Nam’s father, Duong, talks.

“Our life now is easier than five years ago. My family used to be suffering 4-6 months of food shortage per year,” he says. “ChildFund came and taught us to improve cultivation, lent us money from its savings and credit projects, and discussed with us how to generate and manage family income. Now, we have enough rice for food. The borrowed money is used for raising pigs. ChildFund also teaches us how to raise pigs for profit. In the past, we harvested pigs only every two years.”

Duong says the family sells pigs twice a year and makes between $100 and $150 each time.

“This year, I don’t have to borrow money because I use the profit from previous sales to invest,” he says.

What’s next: Nam continues to help his family and then closes the day off by studying.

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