Hi Sina Photo: Leslie Wilson
On my first field trip as CWS Southeast Asia Regional Coordinator, I travelled to northern Cambodia, where CWS has worked for many years. One day I was privileged to meet Hi Sina, who was one of the beneficiaries of CWS disaster recovery efforts following damaging 2011 floods that affected Kam Prak village and many others in Preah Vihear Province. Hi Sina soon became a CWS household partner and, as a partner, she worked with us to make a family development plan which made her eligible to join different project activities based on her family’s needs and her interests. She joined a training on fish farming and received fingerlings, which she is successfully raising for sale. She has also received seeds for subsistence farming and has been a rice bank member since 2012, which helps her family when their own rice, which meets only half their household needs, runs out.
Hi Sin, 59, and her husband, Chum Lak, 56, who is disabled, live with four of their grandchildren in the village. I met three of the grandchildren, too, though they were quite shy. Hi Sina has seven children; four are married and three are single. They all work in factories in Phnom Penh because livelihoods opportunities in remote rural villages like Kam Prak are very limited.
Leslie F. Wilson is the Southeast Asia Regional Coordinator at CWS.