This morning we visited two very different families.
The first family lives far from the main town. When we arrived, we were greeted by a boy, his sister, and their aunt. The household counts five members: a mother and four children. The father passed away two years ago, and the mother works in a shoe factory far away with one of her older children. The three remaining children live alone at home. The eldest, sixteen years old, stopped school to take care of her younger brother (grade 8) and sister (grade 2).
With limited income, the mother can only send around one million dong per month to support them. The eldest daughter sometimes works in the rice fields or helps her grandparents, who live next door, with cooking and cleaning to earn a little more money. Her wish is to join her mother in the factory when she turns eighteen.
Thien Chi currently supports the boy in grade 8 with an annual scholarship of 700,000 dong. However, the team is looking for additional funding through Give Asia and Thien Chi website to provide a monthly scholarship of 300,000 dong, allowing him to continue school. Before the father’s death, the family lived more comfortably, but since then, life has become much more challenging.
The second family we met consists of six people: the parents, the grandmother, and three children. Thien Chi has supported them since February 2025 through the Pig Bank program. The family received a sow worth six million dong and has already repaid piglets. They also took part in training to learn how to raise the pig properly.
(See more about Pig Bank and how it works: https://thienchicenter.org/article/agricultural-models-for-a-more-sustainable-future-21175.html)
This family does not receive other types of support, as their income is above one million dong per person per month (1,389,000). The father and mother both work as rubber tree laborers, leaving for work around 11 p.m. and working through the night. The husband alone manages around 700 trees, he earns 500 dong per tree, or 700 when he needs to make higher cuts. On average, he earns about 490,000 dong per night, roughly 16 euros, working around twenty days each month when it doesn’t rain.
The family currently has seven pigs and plans to keep some to expand breeding.
According to the director, they are hardworking and reliable making it easier to help them continue improving their economic situation.
Leticia