I have a job

The hungry pigs squeal while my wife and I are cooking food for them.

While feeding the hungry pigs with the warm food, I recall the time I was toiling away at many unstable jobs across the country since I was 15 years old.

Having just graduated secondary school, I said goodbye to my parents, heading to a city in search of jobs. Once I was on the bus, I started crying. I was missing my family of eight siblings and feeling sorry for myself.

Born into a poor family, we never had enough food. All of my siblings dropped out of school when they were just third or fourth graders. They needed to help my parents do farming work during day time and hunt for mussels during night time.

In the city of Quang Ninh, I was rejected to work as a miner due to my young age but accepted to work as a cleaner with 600 thousands dong [US$27] paid per month.

I returned home and gave all three million dong [US$150] I saved after six months to my mom. She hugged me and cried.

I travelled back and forth between the North and the Central Highlands, working as a miner, coffee picker, bricklayer and transporter. All jobs were exhausting with low paid, yet available opportunities were very limited.

After several years of living death, I returned home, doing all kinds of occasional manual labors.

I repeated the circle of going to cities then getting back home when all my efforts of scraping a living failed. I did not know whether there would be a way out of poverty.

In 2014, World Vision cooperated with the local youth union in my hometown in Lac Son district to open husbandry training courses. It was this time that we found a door to a new life. 

After a 3-month course, World Vision helped us form a savings and animal husbandry group of 20 members. I was selected to be the group leader. I and two other members received from World Vision seven million dong [US$34] to start raising pigs.

With knowledge, skills, and money in hand, I had first bought ten pigs, of which I sold nine after three months. Making some profit, I borrowed money from our group’s pool and bought 10 more pigs.

Earning eight million dong after two broods, I was able to repay the loan and meet my family expenses.

Then I mobilized the members to set up a savings account and payment mechanism for other members to soon have access to loans too.

After a while, I was voted to be the village’s Youth Union’s member. I had chance to meet more people and share my experiences of escaping poverty.

I still need to work hard, but my kids now have enough food and are able to go to school. Their future gives me more strength and hope for my entire family’s better life ahead.

Now, it is my turn to give back by helping other people in my village escape poverty. With this intention in mind, my wife and I have planned to enlarge our animal husbandry model and welcome people to come and learn.

Vietnamese text by Bui Van Dong, Lac Son ADP