Farmer Ko Ye Naing is always looking for opportunities to improve his family’s livelihood. The 38-year-old father of two and his wife, Ma Nandar Win, live on a three-acre farm 55 miles west of Yangon, Myanmar. They grow about 700 pounds of chili peppers, which they sell for about $500 yearly. He also works as […]
Nurmita lives in a Central Sulawesi village where, before a devastating earthquake in 2018, she sold traditional cakes to earn a nice income. In the disaster Nurmita lost her baking equipment and supplies … and her livelihood. Her situation was not uncommon, unfortunately. And it has taken quite some time for people to recover and […]
Things are a bit business unusual for CWS these days, as they are for much of the world. The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is slowing us down and causing us to reschedule larger group activities. These include Community-led Total Sanitation start-up events and cross-community sharing and learning field trips. But, in most rural areas where CWS […]
CWS and the YMCA of Maubin Township in Myanmar recently launched a vocational education and training pilot for 20 women who will learn how to sew over the course of eight weeks with 270 hours in the workshop. Already during their first week, students reviewed manual sewing machine parts: switches, levers, pedals, etc. to learn […]
You may have heard about CWS and the ACT Alliance before. ACT is a coalition of churches and faith-based organizations that work in countries all over the world. It’s a platform for its members, including CWS, to coordinate our programs to be as efficient and effective as possible. To that end, many countries, including Myanmar, […]
Bou Doeun, who is 46 years old, lives with her husband and their eight young children in Boeng Ahrak village of Battambang province in western Cambodia. Besides being an exceptionally large family, even by rural Cambodian standards, this family is landless. With help from local government and the Buddhis community pagoda, they built a small […]
Emiliani is a 44-year-old housewife, mother and farmer from Balombong village. In 2018, Emiliani joined KSPP Anggrek, a women-run savings and loan group. Anggrek is supported by the CWS Disaster Risk Reduction through Enhanced Adaptive Measures (DREAM) project, which helps families build their resilience. One way DREAM works is by supporting women farmers to organize […]
Before joining Timor Zero Hunger activities with CWS, 33-year-old Julio de Jesus liked to joke that he only planted weeds in his garden. “I didn’t know how to plant vegetables properly, nor was I in a farmers group”, he said. But after he joined a simple ag information and skill-building session, Julio learned how to […]
Em Kimsour, is 38; her husband, Ros Samnang, is 41, and their four children are aged four to 13. They live in Choam Ksant village in northern Cambodia, where they are subsistence farmers. Though the family is poor, the older children are lucky enough to attend school – even though it has been a struggle […]