“I was raised in Namone village but for a long time I knew I needed to leave. To access the nearest road, I had to walk three hours.”
“I was raised in Namone village but for a long time I knew I needed to leave. To access the nearest road, I had to walk three hours. We had no water supply or electricity and there was no school for my children. We had some land for agriculture but not enough so I used to collect timber. But then selling anything to make money was always difficult because we were so far from any roads.”
“In 2014, our village head said if we wanted to live a better life we should move. They told us to go to Nasikhamxai village where the government had started a primary school and even had water and electricity. I was sad to leave our home but life in this new village has been good. I have enough land to provide enough rice for my family. I am also raising seven cows and every year I have been selling one to get money to maintain my home and buy school uniforms and books for my three children. But this year we found out that one of our children cannot hear(deaf) so we decided not to send him to school anymore.”
“Since 2016 I have even started to grow coffee. Our village is supported by a project to grow coffee in this province. I have never in my lifetime heard of anyone providing seeds, materials, fertilizers and even training to help us grow a good crop and make money. I am very happy I made the quick decision to join growing coffee. I have planted 6000 seedling and my plants are now doing very well. When I look back at my last year, there is no doubt that coffee had been such a big part of it. We have worked so hard and I am hoping that this coffee will bring new income for us. It will become a permanent crop for my children. I cannot imagine that none of this would have happened for us if we had not moved to Nasikhamxai.”
“More great news for my family recently has been that my daughter got married and is expecting a baby in two months. We will have more labour in our family to help with the coffee! I am still worried about having a market for my coffee because if nobody buys it then all my work will be wasted and plans to make coffee a permanent crop here will fail. But I continue to focus on my work and hope that one day coffee will bring me enough money for my children’s school expenses.”