Strong-willed mother finds her way out of poverty with support from Mushrooms-with-a-Mission
Ms Muon with her growing house
For years, Ms. Doan Thi Muon, a single parent of three children in Cam Lo District, has been collecting and trading junk to earn enough money to feed her family. The 50-year-old single mother lost her job as a kindergarten teacher after she gave birth to her third child in 2000. Not having enough land for farming, her only choice was to start trading all kinds of assorted junk for income – kitchen utensils, pieces of fabric, electrical wiring, aluminium cans, etc.. For twelve years she has had to bike ten kilometres a day, making the rounds house to house to collect scrap under scorching heat and biting cold. Her health has suffered. She has been diagnosed with spondylitis and hernias. She worries that someday she may be too sick to continue working as a scrap collector.
Before, on a lucky day she could earn 30,000VND or about $1.50 USD from reselling junk to a local scrap dealer. "Other people can have a day off if they fall sick," Ms. Muon said. "For me, I cannot, because a day off means my children will have nothing to eat." As she talked, several scars on her face and neck were visible, the result of injuries she sustained from cluster bomb fragments when she was a child during the war.
Her eldest son quit high school last year to take a job in Saigon as a seasonal worker, because he could not afford his tuition. "He is brave," Ms. Muon said. "If I can earn more, maybe he will be able to continue his studies and even get a higher education," she said.
This October is a time of hope for Ms. Muon and 99 other landmine survivor families, female-headed households and ethnic minorities in Quang Tri Province. These families will go into the Lingzhi mushroom season with the promising prospect of getting much higher incomes to improve their living conditions. So these days Ms. Muon is busy installing a mushroom grow house with construction materials and labour supported by Mushrooms with a Mission. She is convinced that the medicinal qualities of the popular Lingzhi mushroom will bring her and the other women out of poverty.
Ms. Muon was selected to join the Mushrrooms with a Mission program in January 2012. Under this innovative initiative, she and other UXO victims and disadvantaged families have been provided with tools, material, training and grow houses to cultivate a variety of mushrooms.
"If I strictly follow the technical guidance provided by the Mushrooms with a Mission staff, I can earn four million Viet Nam dong (about $200 USD) after deducting costs for six months of cultivation," Ms. Muon said while standing next to her mushroom grow house which was under construction and going to house 400 ready-to-fruit blocks for the first Lingzhi crop.
Ms. Muon hopes the income from growing Lingzhi will also help her get the medical care she needs as well as tuition for her younger children. "If things go well with the mushrooms," she said, "I'm thinking about quitting my scrap trading work to focus just on mushroom growing, which is easier and more profitable."
Initiated in 2009, the mission of Mushrooms with a Mission is to improve the livelihoods and reduce poverty of hundreds of survivors of landmine/UXO accidents and their families. The program is funded by the U.S. Department of State's Office of Weapons Abatement and Removal, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China and the Embassy of Japan in Hanoi. The Mushroom facility which is in place in Cam Lo District processes, packages and markets the mushrooms bought from the farmers. In the future it is expected that the profits from sale of these mushrooms will be re-invested to fund removal of UXO in Quang Tri Province.
Resource: Landmine Vietnam
Help us now: There are still a lot of single mothers on the waiting list and this program could not offer to support them all as they are lacking money. We are searching for more funding and would appreciate very much if you could donate or become a fund raiser for this project. If you are interested in donation, please donate here. If you are interested in becoming a fund raiser, please register here or send us an email
Before, on a lucky day she could earn 30,000VND or about $1.50 USD from reselling junk to a local scrap dealer. "Other people can have a day off if they fall sick," Ms. Muon said. "For me, I cannot, because a day off means my children will have nothing to eat." As she talked, several scars on her face and neck were visible, the result of injuries she sustained from cluster bomb fragments when she was a child during the war.
Her eldest son quit high school last year to take a job in Saigon as a seasonal worker, because he could not afford his tuition. "He is brave," Ms. Muon said. "If I can earn more, maybe he will be able to continue his studies and even get a higher education," she said.
This October is a time of hope for Ms. Muon and 99 other landmine survivor families, female-headed households and ethnic minorities in Quang Tri Province. These families will go into the Lingzhi mushroom season with the promising prospect of getting much higher incomes to improve their living conditions. So these days Ms. Muon is busy installing a mushroom grow house with construction materials and labour supported by Mushrooms with a Mission. She is convinced that the medicinal qualities of the popular Lingzhi mushroom will bring her and the other women out of poverty.
Ms. Muon was selected to join the Mushrrooms with a Mission program in January 2012. Under this innovative initiative, she and other UXO victims and disadvantaged families have been provided with tools, material, training and grow houses to cultivate a variety of mushrooms.
"If I strictly follow the technical guidance provided by the Mushrooms with a Mission staff, I can earn four million Viet Nam dong (about $200 USD) after deducting costs for six months of cultivation," Ms. Muon said while standing next to her mushroom grow house which was under construction and going to house 400 ready-to-fruit blocks for the first Lingzhi crop.
Ms. Muon hopes the income from growing Lingzhi will also help her get the medical care she needs as well as tuition for her younger children. "If things go well with the mushrooms," she said, "I'm thinking about quitting my scrap trading work to focus just on mushroom growing, which is easier and more profitable."
Initiated in 2009, the mission of Mushrooms with a Mission is to improve the livelihoods and reduce poverty of hundreds of survivors of landmine/UXO accidents and their families. The program is funded by the U.S. Department of State's Office of Weapons Abatement and Removal, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China and the Embassy of Japan in Hanoi. The Mushroom facility which is in place in Cam Lo District processes, packages and markets the mushrooms bought from the farmers. In the future it is expected that the profits from sale of these mushrooms will be re-invested to fund removal of UXO in Quang Tri Province.
Resource: Landmine Vietnam
Help us now: There are still a lot of single mothers on the waiting list and this program could not offer to support them all as they are lacking money. We are searching for more funding and would appreciate very much if you could donate or become a fund raiser for this project. If you are interested in donation, please donate here. If you are interested in becoming a fund raiser, please register here or send us an email