CARE Denmark Helps Khmer-Krom Women

In Vietnam’s Long Phu district, the humanitarian aid organization CARE Denmark is working to help the poor Khmer ethnic women by improving their farming skills and their knowledge on family care.

By Theis Broegger
ScandAsia 2006-08-12

Lately many of the poor women from the Khmer ethnic minority in the district of Long Phu in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta province of Soc Trang[Khleang in Khmer] have been benefiting from special training offered through a project funded by the help organization CARE Denmark.

The training has helped improve the Khmer-Krom women’s farming skills as well as their knowledge on family care. The project – officially named the Participatory Community Development (PACODE) – has set up 124 groups with more than 2,000 members. The members are all Khmer-Krom women from the communes An Hiep, Thuan Hoa, Truong Khanh, and Lich Hoi Thuong. The groups meet regularly to learn about safe water, environmental hygiene, and community health care under the instruction of PACODE lecturers.

The Khmer Krom women also share skills concerning farming and raising animals. The Soc Trang province is home to no less than 350,000 ethnic Khmers[based on Vietnamese figures?], most of whom mainly live in the districts of Vinh Chau, My Xuyen, Long Phu, and Thanh Tri.