A Garden Grows to Support a Family

Every afternoon, just after the final school bell rings, 14-year-old Ki treks down a dirt road with a watering can in her hand.

With her 19-year-old sister Test beside her, the girls arrive at a garden bursting with cabbage and green beans.

For about 30 minutes, the girls fill the watering cans from the river bordering the garden and sprinkle it on the plants.

“I am very happy when I look at our crops, it’s growing very quickly,” says Ki Sengsamai who is studying in Grade 6.

“The crops have given me a new future. I have completed my studies and become a Kindergarten teacher because of selling these crops,” adds Test.

They pull the weeds springing up in between the plants.

“Before, we used to live by ourselves because our parents were not at home, they stayed at the small hut at the rice field and did their farm work to provide food for us,” says Ki, 14.

Ki’s parents were stuck. Everyday, they worked tirelessly to try and provide enough food for their three children. But most days, their hard work was not enough. Because the family lives in a mountainous region of Laos, their father Ouy, climbed for an hour to get to the fields. When he finally reached his plot for growing rice – he found a dry and rocky patch of land located in northern Laos that didn’t produce much. But it was all Ouy had to provide for his family.

Each year, the yields were low. The harvest was not enough to feed the family for the whole year. When the rice would run out, Ouy’s wife would strap a bamboo basket onto her back and go to the forest and search for leaves and herbs that the family could eat.

“The income was too small and I worried how I could divide it to buy [extra] rice and support the children to go to school,” Ouy says.

Ouy was like most farmers in Laos - subsistence farmers. There was never enough left over to sell at the market.

But World Vision helped Ouy and other families change this situation. Ouy was invited to join a home garden project training session.

At first, Ouy and the 20 other farmers were bored– they usually work outside and it was hard to sit in a classroom all day. They doubted what they were learning.  But the more the trainer talked about growing lettuce, cucumber, long green beans, garlic, onion and other new vegetables the more the farmers were interested. When the trainer taught them how to grow vegetables during the dry season, Ouy couldn’t believe it. That had never been done in his village before.

World Vision then took Ouy on a learning trip to another province to show him how other farmers were able to grow food, even in the dry season. Seeing this, Ouy was eager to try these new farming techniques. World Vision gave Ouy a water pail and eight different kinds of vegetable seeds and he quickly got to work.

In his first harvest, Ouy was amazed to see all the vegetables growing in his garden. They ate some of the vegetables and then sold the extra, earning 3,000,000 kip (about USD $375).  

With his new found confidence, Ouy started raising chickens and ducks. He also signed up to become the Village Health Worker. 

He was honored when a few months later the village development committee asked Ouy if he would consider becoming the village chief.

Today, Ouy is still the village chief and a successful farmer and business man. He grows eight different kinds of vegetables and poultry. He sells his produce in the market and earns enough money that he no longer needs to grow rice in the mountains.

“I am happy that I able to support my first daughter to completed her studies, she is now a kindergarten teacher in my village and I continue to support my other two daughters to study,” says Ouy, 42. “For my future plan, I will extend the garden to grow more many kinds of vegetables and makes more income to support my children and family.”

Even better, Ouy’s children now go to school after they have eaten a healthy breakfast, they no longer have to worry about what they’ll eat.

“Thank you to World Vision and government who give me a chance to develop my family condition to be better than before,” Ouy’s adds.

The security has allowed for Ki to dream.

“I want to become a doctor in the future because I like to cure ill people,” Ki adds, smiling, while continuing to work in the garden.