Need 2

Water well with hand pumps are a real jump in potential for families. The impact of a well has both immediate and long-term effects and serves five families. During the times of drought, water can be pumped and used to irrigate the fields. A pond can be hand dug and fish can then be raised. It’s easy to purchase small fish to raise in the market, raise them to full grown and then resell them in the market. Also live stock is healthier with good water.
A mechanized water pump allows families to irrigate their field during the “hunger” months (the end of the dry season/beginning of the wet season). One pump can irrigate up to ten families fields, allowing them to grow vegetables for both food and sale, which can double their annual income and double the nutritional value of their diet.
A toilet improves a family’s hygiene and doubles as a bathing room. The toilet design is a typical squat style, water sealed, with water trough made of cement and tile which is used to bathe.
All children in Cambodia aver the age of 4 years need to contribute to the family income. They participate by working in the fields, collecting firewood, caring for younger siblings, doing the laundry, cooking meals, etc. By helping in this way. It allows the parents to go out and work to earn the income necessary to survive.
Older children work for the family and may work at other jobs to raise their own money to attend school. Tabitha currently has over 2,000 children on the Saving Program saving in their own right. Education is an important goal for most Cambodians. Cost for schooling are paid directly by the families. School fees of R200-R300 ($.05-$.08US) in the countryside and R500-R1000 ($.13-$.25US) in urban areas). If a family’s income is less then $.50 us per day, the cost of sending 2-3 children to school is prohibitive. In Cambodia school uniforms are mandatory. The rationale behind this is that no-one can distinguish between the rich and the poor. But is another financial burden on a poor family. School supplies are not provided so they must have pencils and writing pads. The text books are provided by the school, are not the best quality and ware out. They would need to be replaced by the family. Although text books are provided by the school, because they consist of newsprint they are very easily damaged and each student must pay for the replacement.
Transportation to school is another big issue for education. They may be a few miles from the nearest school. School is set up in two half day sessions. Children can able to be in school for half the day and work the other half. First session starts at 7 am and goes until noon and the second runs from 1pm to 6 pm. Transportation, usually in the form of a bicycle, is extremely important. It may allow children to go to school and still work for the family. The bike itself can be a method to generate income and allow moving goods to market.
Ninety-five percent of Tabitha’s families are not mobile and so are isolated and restricted to their own village. Therefore, They do not have access to markers or to new ideas. This severely restricts a family’s ability to generate income.
Owning a Motor bike improves a family’s wealth. Vast numbers of deaths in Cambodia occur because there is no easy access to medical car. Children die needlessly from such treatable conditions as diarrhea, of a farmer may bleed to death because of a cut that could be treated. Although most women go through pregnancy safely under the care of the local women, 90 percent of women who suffer a difficult pregnancy will die during childbirth or shortly after, if they do not have access to transportation. Motor bikes are very expensive purchase for a family, so most people but secondhand vehicles. With access to a motor bike, a family’s income will double or even treble. Ninety percent of Tabitha’s families are farmers. The very poorest of these families do not have access to farming implements or any means of moving their rice from one place to another. To transport their rice they have to rent and pay others, so whatever profit they make is eaten up by others for the use of their equipment/transport.
Access to an amount of money large enough to do something substantial like build a home, buy a motor bike or bicycle, or even get out of debt, is difficult to come by. One possible means of doing this is to develop a ”live piggy bank”. A family can buy two piglets, raise them for 4-6 months and then resell them for eight to ten times the original cost. Farmers in Cambodia re still reliant on plough animals to work in their fields. Without their own, farmers must rent the village or neighbor’s plough animals, which cuts into their own food supplies. A farmer must grow enough rice to sustain the family during the six “hunger” months. Once a cow or buffalo is acquired, they are never sold. With the purchase of livestock comes the need to provide an animal stall; without shelter, cows get sick and die. Alternatively, when floods occur, animals stalls need to be rebuilt. Chickens and ducks are raised by the family to supplement their diet and also generate income at special times of the year like Khmer New Year and the Water Festival. If a farmers does not have rice seed left from the previous season, they must borrow from the money lender to but seed. The debt has to be repaid at the end of the harvest with one sack of rice out of every ten. Families on the Tabitha Saving Program save money to buy the rice seed. Tabitha families plant one rice crop per year; the rest of the time the fields lies fallow because they do not have access to vegetable seeds. Vegetables supplement a family’s diet and also provide a god source of income. People who have access to well and can grow vegetable crops quadruple their annual income. With the use of fertilizer a farmer can double his harvest per ton. On average per year, !,000 Tabitha families save for fertilizer and 1,000 save for vegetable seed Fertilizer per crop $50
Farm tools The majority of Tabitha families for not have access to any farming implements: ploughs, scythes, watering cans, etc. When rice is harvested, it is essential to provide an elevated mud shelter, which is waterproof and rat proof. There are many single-women households in Cambodia. During rice planting and harvesting they must pay for extra labor. This is especially true of single mothers with children who are to young to work long periods in the fields, Without a rice crop these families would starve.
Everyone deserves to feel safe and have a roof over their heads, no matter how modest that might be. Most families Tabitha meets live in a dwelling 6 feet square, built of grass thatches with mud floors. This dwelling will have to accommodate, on average, eight to ten people. This means that at night at least half of the family members must sleep in the open; it also means that during the day at least one or two member must stay home to protect whatever meager belongings they have, which in turn, means that they cannot go out to work and contribute to the family income.
Due to the climate in Cambodia-either hot and dry or very wet-the thatch needs to be replaces at least once a year, or one constant basis, which once again eats up a fair amount of the family’s income.
Generally, it will take about two and a half years for a family to save enough for a roof of their own home. They will then construct that and live in it without any walls for a further two and a half to three years. An average house measures 12feet x 15 feet.