Nhi is sharing her newfound agricultural skills with her neighbors. After participating in the CARE course, she has qualified as a Farmer Trainer, responsible for educating sixteen other women in her village, Xua Ha. They’re not just learning farming techniques, but about legal options and their rights in cases of property disputes, divorces, or other family disagreements. That’s no small matter in this country, where rural women traditionally move in with their husbands’ families upon marriage, and until now rarely have had property of their own or the ability to take part in community decision-making.
“Things are different for women now than in my mother’s day,” says Nhi. “Our chances of participating in society, getting an education, and having contact with outsiders—all are better.” All the same, women from poor families like Nhi’s have a long way to go before they can realize their potential. Her daughters, who have quit school to go to work, face challenges of their own.
It’s harvest time, and Nhi’s daughter Quach Thi Hue, eighteen, has returned home to help her mother take in the crop. With no work near home, she had to move to a faraway province where she found a job washing dishes. Hue finished five years of school before dropping out. That’s more than her sixteen-year-old sister. A year ago, the younger girl moved to the port city of Haiphong, from where she is sending home money—about $130 so far, a big help to her mother.
But Nhi isn’t sure how the young woman is earning the money; she tells her family she is a hairdresser. “I will always regret that I had to send her away to be brought up by relatives, and that she never got an education,” says Nhi, gazing at a cheap studio portrait of her daughter, in profile with a cascade of shiny hair. “It makes me very sad that she’s illiterate. She’s pretty.”
By Rick Perera the Press Officer for CARE. CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. Learn more at www.care.org.Check out CARE's profile page at DivineCaroline.
