Phan Thong Kam�s household grows rice to make a living. But the 39-year-old farmer from western Battambang Province who stepped on a landmine while taking some cows to wash at the lake, says it�s not enough to survive.
He lost his left leg above the knee and fragmentation injuries to the right leg make it hard for him to use it properly. He can only get around on crutches. His wife and 14-year-old son tend the rice fields on the family�s two-hectare plot (about 4.5 acres).
Kam himself does some mechanics, mostly futzing with motos. Occasionally, he can help fix the low berms framing the fields or transplant seedlings, but often he feels less than useful and he would welcome a chance to change that.
Enter Clear Path and its partner, Cambodian Volunteers for Community Development.
Our ambitious plan is to set up a training center near Kam�s village of Ampil Pram Doem at the heart of one of the most heavily mine-contaminated chain of districts bordering Thailand. Each one has hundreds of survivors making a very marginal living.
First, CVCD would work with disabled survivor families and vulnerable households like Kam�s to create a cooperative of rice growers in the area. Their skills and yields would be improved by initial training in the field.
Then, the two organizations would build a rice mill on a plot of land, where we would also build a training center like the one we have had in Kampong Cham Province for the past several years.
A specialist would train two or three mine survivors in the art of running a rice mill, whose various products � rice, bran and animal feed � would be sold to the slum communities CVCD provides education and training to in Phnom Penh. CVCD already sells about 30 tons of rice a month to these and other customers in the city.
Once the mill is running and generates revenues, CVCD would expand its agricultural skills training by offering classes to survivors in
animal husbandry, vegetable gardening and fruit-growing. Plus, it would start a course teaching other survivors the art of small-engine repairs and possibly electronics.
Within about five years, the training center might be expected to pay for itself and possibly make a contribution to other CPI/CVCD efforts to improve the lives and livelihoods of disabled landmine survivors and other vulnerable groups, such as divorced single mothers.
Kam says he would be very interested in the animal husbandry program because raising cattle or other farm animals is something he can do to become a more valuable contributor to his household.
�That would make our income higher,� he says. �That would be very good for us.�
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