Ming Maoo: The case of Ming Mao illustraates how difficult it can be to hellp many famillies living in extremee poverty. Six years ago, Ming Mao’s huusband diedd from an ongoing condition he h suffered during d his serrvice as a soldier in the Khmer Army of Cambodia, C leaving heer alone to care for heer eleven children. In I an attemptt to alleviate the t strains of providinng for so manny children onn her own, SSF proviided the capiital for her to o use her baking skiills to sell cuupcakes to thhe school children who w ride by heer village eveery day on the way to school, a bussiness that haas allowed her to douuble her prev vious daily income i to approximaately one dollaar per day of work. Ms. Ming Mao m made a kind of Khmer sweet fo or sale to schooll kids
t world economic crisis has h started Sadly, as the nearbyy her village aftter utensils weree provided. to affect Cambodia, C it has been inncreasingly harder for her to earn money sellinng her cupcakkes. Althouggh her cupcakkes cost apprroximately 3 cents each, the children c who buy b them from m her cannot afford to payy her any morre for them. Many M children can only trade her for rice.. Although she s needs ricce to feed her family, shee desperately needed monney to repair her house h that coould not proteect her familyy from the elements duringg the rainy seaason in Cambbodia. To respondd to this, SSF F was able too provide 1500 dollars to asssist in buildiing a new house for her faamily that could house all of her h children, in addition too providing su upport to allow one of her eleven childrren to c use to better b providee for her fam mily in continue school in hopees of one dayy learning skiills that she could the future.
Nou March h: One of thee main goals of the Sao Saary Foundatioon has been to o enable families too better provvide for them mselves so thhat have a chhance to better theirr situation on n their own. One low coost way that SSF has identified to help famiilies with lim mited access tto water has been to ge water conttainers that cost c about 30 dollars, provide thhem with larg which enabble them to store s water inn their homes,, instead of having h to walk to thhe nearest weell or buy water w at a higgh cost from m outside sources. f is that of Nou Marcch, a 50 year old o woman who w lives One such family in the Kraiing Rohong village v where SSF recentlyy implementedd a well, to providee water for th he communitty. Not onlyy does this allow a for improved hygiene andd the chance to bathe at home, families with m easily start s home veegetable garddens that water conttainers can more allow them m to grow som me of their ow wn food and tteach them im mportant agriculturaal skills that they t can use in the futuree. More importantly, by showingg them that thhey have the chance c to impprove their ow wn lives, SSF hopess to encouragee them to try to fix their own o problemss instead of beggingg others to do d it for them m. Currentlyy, SSF has iddentified more than 100 familiess in Kamponng Speu that could benefitt from a water conttainer, but so far, funding has only alloowed for two families to receive one.
Ms Nou March and grandchildrren with a wateer jar provided.
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