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THE SENG FAMILY

This house belongs to a woman called Suey Seng.  She is a single mother and has five children between the ages of five and 15. 

There’s a very high percentage of single parent households in Prasat Char village.  In this particular case it is due to the husband taking another wife, but in the many of cases it is due to the death of one of the parents due to ill health.  Because of the lack of even basic medical care people die of ailments that would be usually be curable.

Mrs Seng ekes out a meagre living by working in rice fields of more prosperous people in the rice harvesting time.  Her children also come and help.  For this she receives less than $1.00 a day.  When the rice season is over, she goes into the forest to collect fruit and wood to sell.

It’s hard to describe just how little this family have.   The roof of their hut has many holes in it so when it rains everything they own (which isn’t much) gets saturated.  A temporary solution was to provide them with a tarp large enough to cover the roof. 

Amongst other things, we have also bought a bike for the family.  The oldest son is now in high school which is quite far away – too far to walk.  Now that he has a bike he can get to school.

Most of the families I have been helping got their water from holes in the ground.  It is extremely dirty.  Thanks to the donations from family and friends we have built over 20 water pumps.

We have now also completely rebuilt Mrs Seng's house.  To make sure there was no jealousy amongst her neighbours we made sure it was no bigger than the original house, but at least is now shelters the family from the elements.  You can read more about the rebuilding of her house at newsletter number 10.