When chickens mean enough to eat, education and even home renovations in Cambodia

If you had met Bun Ven in 2007, you would have met a man who was struggling. He and his wife, Heng Samoeut, were extremely poor. Most days, they didn’t have enough to eat. They couldn’t afford the fees and uniform costs to send their daughter to school. There just wasn’t enough.

What Ven had plenty of, though, was initiative. He had the drive and energy to improve his life. His goal was to earn enough money to live a decent, if simple, life. He just needed a hand to make it happen. Then he heard about CWS.

Ven decided to learn more about raising chickens and joined a CWS program. He received a gift of a few chickens from CWS, and thus his business was born. He put his natural initiative to work, continually learning from his and others’ experience to improve his chicken-raising business.

Now, his business is thriving. He says, “From knowing nothing about chickens, I am now running a successful business so my family has enough food all year round, my daughter goes to school and we even saved some money to renovate our house. I now earn around $1,500 each season from my rice harvest and from chicken-raising.”

Ven is always on hand to answer questions and coach his neighbors. In fact, he works as a livelihoods educator-trainer, sharing his practical knowledge and skills with others in his community. His expertise about raising healthy chickens includes cage preparation, proper feeding and disease prevention, especially through vaccination.

When he thinks back to 2007, Ven says, “I am so thankful for past support, and now for helping me use my knowledge and skills, which I learned because of CWS, to confidently share my knowledge with other community members.”