Miyu was born in a young Karen* family of four; her parents, her younger sister, and Miyu herself. They live in a shabby house, not having much, but seem to be happy with what they have. The girl’s parents are the low-income wage earners. As young as 5 years old, Miyu is already a big help to her parents. She is her mum’s helping hand with house chores and cooking.

When the family received support from CCF with local breeds of chicken and mushroom spawn bags as part of ‘CCF’s Home-based Food Security’ program, Miyu’s father eagerly prepared special places for their mini farm. He made a special place for the mushroom, not too high, so the little Miyu can reach. He also made a chicken coop and bamboo baskets for the hens to lay their eggs. Miyu’s daily routine is joining her daddy to feed the chicken and water the spawn bags, twice a day.

“I love eating hen eggs and mushroom. They are available for me to collect every day,” said the girl joyfully as she’s showing us some eggs and mushroom.

Miyu always has a good time sharing the mushroom to others while the eggs are precious to her, she chooses not to share, giving adorable and innocent reason that the hens could only produce a few eggs per day and that’s enough only for her and her little sister. And she will trade the eggs with vegetables from the neighbours when there are more hens to produce more eggs.

“When the mushroom was ready to harvest, we got more than enough for our family. Miyu suggested we should share the mushroom with our relatives so they share their vegetables with us in return. Miyu then came home with some vegetables. It’s so nice that we don’t have to buy them plus Miyu can get closer to her relatives in this lovely way,” Miyu’s mother happily shared with us.

An innocent smile and her exciting conversation made with us showed pure happiness especially when you see the way she talked about the chicken and mushroom, it’s priceless. This indicates a success of “CCF’s Home-based Food Security”, a program that enables many families to be more independent with fresh food supplies, to learn how to run small family farming, and to strengthen family and community units.

*The Karen people are an ethnic group living in South-East Asia near the Thai Burma boarder.

Adul Sa-ard
Chieng Mai Child Welfare
2 September 2016