Vegetables and Team Work
Written by Boy, Choy, Koemyen, Sa Em, San, Sohin and Sophy.
In June of 2016, we, the Education Outreach Officers, made veggie gardens for our girls who are living in difficult situations. We want our girls to have good health and veggie gardens provide food for the whole family, improves their skills, and shows them that we care about them. We gave each girl five types of seeds: morning glory, winter melon, herb, pumpkin and zucchini. Some veggie gardens were so difficult to build because the houses were completely surrounded by forest. In order to grow vegetables and build our garden, we had to cut though bushes and dig around the roots of trees. But we are so happy to help all these families and lessen their expenses.
Sophy has been with Free To Shine the longest. She is always helpful, fair, friendly and kind. She always gives helpful advice and comes up with good ideas, and it was her idea to grow the seeds for the girls who are living in difficult situations. When we go to make the veggie gardens, she is a key EOO because she leads the team, keeps us happy and makes the hard jobs fun. We are all so appreciative of Sophy’s idea because it is so helpful to our girls. Most girls do not know how to grow the seeds, so the crops will not grow well. We hope that now the girls can know how to grow the seeds well, and can have their own vegetables to eat and sell.
When we visited our girls this month, they are all taking such good care of their veggie gardens! One girl told us that she gets up early in the morning to water it and then again in the evening. Every second day she weeds the grasses to keep the vegetables growing well. She told us, “I hope I can grow it well so I can cook delicious food and can sell some at the market to make some extra money for myself. Thank you to Free To Shine for supporting me and thank you my EOO’s for making this lovely vegetable garden.”
Our team feels so proud of each other and what we have accomplished. Everyone was helpful, friendly and got on well together. Even when we had obstacles such as rain, heat, not many materials, or disagreements, we still did it with the best achievement and a happy environment. I am very proud of our team because we work together from the heart to help and be a good example to our girls. We do not feel like co-workers but like we are a family and it makes us stronger and willing to work together. We love each other.
