KHMER HARVEST BUILD November 15-19, 2011
New Homes and A Farm
One of the greatest challenges families faced when they relocated to a new community in Oudong, Kandal province from a municipal dumpsite in Phnom Penh was finding steady work.
Habitat for Humanity Cambodia is working together with International Children’s Care Australia (ICCA) to develop a farm on two hectares of land. ICCA is providing agriculture and management training with the goal of turning the farm over to the community in three years’ time.
The farm will grow fruits and vegetables that Cambodians consume on a daily basis, with other areas set aside for raising chickens and fish. Initially, produce will be sold locally. Later, to increase incomes, markets will be sought further afield.
The Kingdom of Cambodia, located in the heart of Southeast Asia, is an ancient land with a young population. The median age is 22 years. Known for its historical temple complex at Angkor, Cambodian kings once ruled over a vast domain that stretched from Vietnam to China to the Bay of Bengal.
Cambodia today is emerging from a traumatic past involving the communist Khmer Rouge regime, and is one of the twenty poorest countries in the world. According to a United Nations 2010 Human Development report, over 26 percent of its 13.9 million population lives on the equivalent of less than US$1.25 a day. The majority of children, families and communities live in desperate poverty and struggle to meet the most basic needs of food, clean water and shelter without assistance.
In the capital of Cambodia, Phnom Penh, there is a sprawling 11.3-acre dumpsite at Steung Meanchey where hundreds of families once lived and worked in appalling conditions.
Before the site was closed in July 2009, hundreds of people, most of them children, scavenged through the 900 tons of trash dumped each day. The air was thick with plumes of black smoke and toxic gases rising from the stinking refuse. Although the dumpsite has been closed, families still live among the rubbish in inadequate and insecure shelter, without safe water, sanitary facilities and a means of livelihood, making them even more vulnerable.
Habitat for Humanity’s Khmer Harvest Build will build new lives for these families.
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