My day started with more family visits. The founder of the NGO Mekong Plus, which is the umbrella organization of the Thien Chi Center, also joined us.
We began by visiting a mother whose daughter has rickets, a bone disease that affects mobility and can make it difficult for children to walk or move normally. In addition to her daughter, she has a son and a grandchild, who is supported by the Thien Chi Center through a scholarship.
Because the family has a low income, the government provided them with a cow. They take care of it for about two years before selling it to generate income. In addition, they keep chickens. With support from Thien Chi, they use a mixture of biological material and rice husks, which improves hygiene, reduces odor, and allows them to sell the manure as fertilizer.
The next family we visited receives microloans from Thien Chi to raise pigs and chickens. At the time of our visit, they had three pigs, although they had sold some just a few days earlier.
The mother is currently the only one earning an income, as her husband has kidney disease and needs to go to the hospital three times a week. Their daughter has Down syndrome, which adds to the family’s challenges.
We also visited a mother who was left by her husband while she was pregnant with their third child. The baby is still very young, while her oldest daughter is already in grade 10 and receives a monthly scholarship.
The mother is very committed to supporting her children and wants them to have the best possible education. To earn a living, she works as a middlewoman, selling different types of products, including food, to larger companies.
Finally, we visited a small clothing production facility. Only women work there, some of them up to 12 hours a day. They are paid per piece, earning around 5,000 VND (approximately 0.16€) per finished item, of which about 500 VND goes to the owner. This money is used to cover costs such as sewing machines and the workspace.
The workers do not have fixed contracts but depend on orders from larger clothing companies, mainly based in Ho Chi Minh City, which require high-quality production. However, these companies do not provide additional support, meaning that the head of the production has to rent both the machines and the workspace.
To reduce these ongoing costs, the Thien Chi Center supports the production with a microloan, allowing them to purchase their own sewing machines.