The rainwater collector of Mr. Thavorn

Mr. Phay Thavorn, 45, has 5 members in his family. He is living in Koh Key village and he is the team leader of Rich Chomreoun CBO that has 20 members including 13 women.

After working with CRDT for more than a year (from May 2011 till now) he declared to our team that “CRDT is a new organization that just started working in my area [Ramsar Site] but it makes my community interested and happy to work with because it is always working in linking livelihood and conservation”.

In addition, he said that “before my family had no water tank but now I got one rainwater collector from CRDT. My family and I are so happy as it allowed my wife and young children to stop going to the river that is far deep over 40 meters, to wash, take water for drinking, cooking and for the animals. Moreover, I took a loan from my group to buy a water pump to take the water from the river and fill up the tank for drinking, cooking, washing, livestock raising and for my new home garden. So now my family has more food and income and some vegetables every day”.

Mr. Thavorn is now able to produce at least 1kg to 2kg of vegetables for the consumption of his family and they manage to sell them for 3 dollars to 4 dollars per day and now he starting to improve the size of his home garden to be able to sell more vegetables.

By Ngeth Senglay, Project Manager in Stung Treng