Tick’s family finally has a toilet!

Tick and Tang run giggling down the dirt road of their village, a beautiful location surrounded by green rice plantations.

The two girls are among the 774 people living their village. For most families, their main job is working in the fields growing rice.

“I am very happy that we have our own toilet and it makes me and my sister, as well as my parents, more comfortable to use the toilet than before, especially during the rainy season,” says 8-year-old Tick, a World Vision sponsored child.

In 2013, World Vision provided improved sanitation training and funding for TIck's family to buy materials to build a latrine and ensure it was properly plumbed. 

A few years ago, their family didn’t have a toilet. When nature called, the girls ran into the forest behind their village’s rice fields.

“It was very hard for us especially my when my children were small and they wanted to go to the toilet in the middle of the night and it was even harder in the rainy season. I worried a lot for my children and was afraid an insect would bite them,” says Khuen, 60, the girls’ father.

In this village there are many mosquitos that can carry malaria or dengue fever. Tick, a grade 1 student, and her sister Tang, 10, recall the bites when they had to use the "nature" toilet in the past. They also had other creatures to worry about.

“I was very afraid a snake would bite me during the rainy season,” Tang adds.

Khuen says the unhygienic situation also may have contributed to the family’s poor health in the past.

“My family was also faced with health problems. Three people died in our village because of serious diarrhea. Our village is far from town and we do not have even basic medicine to buy in this village. The only way that we get medicine is to buy from town but it takes a lot of time and the road conditions are not good,” he says.

“There were many times that me and my younger sister were absent from school because of a stomach-ache,” says Tang.

Tick’s parents worried how the girls’ health might be affected their studies. Their family’s income, gained from selling animals like chickens and ducks, was also low and not enough to pay for medical bills. Their only income comes from selling poultry.

In 2013, the World Vision Phine Development Programme started a health program in their village to help families and children find a way to overcome their health problems.

As part of the program, World Vision provided improved sanitation training and funding for 157 families to buy materials to build a latrine and ensure it was properly plumbed. Tick’s family was one of the ones who benefited.

“Me and my sister will not go back to the forest for toilet like before. We are now safe from bites and from insects,” Tang says.

The community is healthier than before, and cases of diarrhea have reduced in the community, reported the village chief Pern, age 36.