User:HoksanAN

Hello,

Greeting from Hoksan AN, from Prek Toal floating village and a project organizer of Prek Toal Home and Life’s project and other project as below.

I would like to share with you, to your friends and family some short description about our life:

I am Hoksan AN, I am really lucky that I was born and to grow up in Prek Toal located in Battambang province, with a beautiful and quiet floating village with our floating house, where is my life skills helped me to gain a tertiary education also working in nearby Siem Reap.

My parents and their parents were born in the floating village (Prek Toal). They are got married during the Polpot genocide.

There are 8 people in my family and I have five sisters. My two older sisters died during the Polpot genocide, so now I have only one older sister and two young sisters. My family is not rich and we have only fishing to support our life.

My village (Prek Toal) is a floating village. We have a dry season and a wet season for 6 months each. During dry season, the villagers fish around the side of the Tonle Sap lake. In the middle the water is low - some places is 1 m, 2m and 3m deep. Some of them grow vegetables for eating and for sale. In the wet season, the water is very high and the villagers go fishing inside the forests, rivers, lakes...not in the middle of the Tonle Sap lake.

When I was 6 years old, I helping my father to fish every day from 2pm till 6am the next morning then at 7am I went to school. After school, I and my father went fishing on the Tonle Sap lake. It was far way from the village and we used the paddle boat. We went to places to go fishing and we would stay there for two or three days and then go back home.

When I was 10 years old, during wet season I went fishing by using net to catching fishes alone with my paddle boat that I to join with a group to stay overnight where is very far away from village (we left in the evening and came back in the morning). We caught the fish with a net that we left in a line in the water and gather it in the morning. In the early morning I started to take our net from the water into our boat. I would bring the fish to our home.

I was very scare and scare every things including crying and praying when we got the big rains and strong winds with big wave.

Mostly I did not sleep and stayed on the boat under rain with my plastic bag until the rain and wind finished, because I also worried about my net, and especially my small paddle boat. It could not stand the big waves so we needed to find a big tree for parking to protect the boat and us.

I lived my whole life on the water and I always think if I have another job I can help my parent to live in more happiness. You know in my village, the villagers’ only career is fishing.

In 2006 till Jan, 2009, I leave from my village to Siem Reap to work at Chinese restaurant to earn money as service staff to support my sisters for her school, paid for renting room and foods (with instead noodle with hot water for everyday). My job which is start from 6AM to 2PM and again from 6PM to 11PM. They offered me for 40USD per month with only two times off per month.

But I always do to visit my parents in the village to help them as well.

In Feb 2009 till June 2016, I started work as receptionist (two properties in Siem Reap) and till sales and marketing manager by managing two properties in Siem Reap and one property in Phnom Penh.

I get a better salary from 70USD/month to 150USD/month include service charge. I got four times off for every month.

In 2015, I graduated the bachelor degree of marketing at Build Bright University in Siem Reap. I want to continue my study for master degrees which is not possible as there is not enough money and I hope that I could continue this in the future.

After I unemployed from the hotel in 2016, I am keep working for my owned tours and travel of Prek Toal Tours & Travel (www.prektoal-tours.com) and also Prek Toal Home Stay which is focus on community development in Prek Toal village.

Also I having the part time job in the morning from 4:45AM till 10:00AM at the market and at night time for part time job which is from 5:30PM till 4:AM or late at any of club or beer gardens in Siem Reap. This jobs are supported for room paid and foods. But sometime do other housework job, metal jobs and other jobs that I can. Most of that are hard for me to get the part time jobs as I want but I try to work out of any jobs that they provides to get more experience as well…

In 1998, Prek Toal Tours & Travel has been operated. Our Prek Toal Tours & Travel is a non-profit tours and travel; and I have set many goals for our tour and travel business that takes its name from my village, Prek Toal: 100% of our revenue is invested back into the local Prek Toal community, so your contributions and payments go directly to our community. Your trip with us! It’s mean you help us to help my Prek Toal Community!
 * 1) To shares our Prek Toal community to the world
 * 2) To share our rural lifestyle - our culture and day-by-day living on the floating houses
 * 3) To create more job opportunities for Prek Toal villagers to get extra income to support their family lives to supplement income from fishing
 * 4) To give value to our guests by making arrangements to join our tours, to build and repair houses for our needy families.

In 2000, Prek Toal Home Stay has been hosted and operated. Our Prek Toal Home Stay offers you an opportunity to share accommodation with the families’ houses in a unique of our floating houses along the Sangke River with views of river and flooded forests including our local home-made foods. And all the payment will be direct to the families.

In 2016, Greening Prek Toal’s Project, has been operated. The Greening Prek Toal Project is focused on planting and growing trees in the large area of 7000 hectares that was burnt in Early April 2016, with villagers providing support in Prek Toal. This project aims to keep the unique environment green and also create a sustainable economic and natural environment for the current and future community.

In 2017, Prek Toal Community Healthcare, has been run and operated. This is a big supported with 17 staffs from “The Fred Hollows Foundation – Cambodia”, to do unpaid outreach eyes screening for our villagers in Prek Toal for 80 people and provided free eye-glasses as well. This project is long term plan and keep looking for supporters from every NGO who wish to work and help our community.

In 2017, Prek Toal Home and Life’s Project has been run and operated. The Project is focused on building floating houses for more than 25 poor families in my community that they could not survive, enhancing living conditions and improving the health of villagers’ environments.

I always looking for sponsors to support to our projects; to allow me to continue our help to develop and making community getting better of living environment, educations and family’s economic to sustainable in the future.

I am always looking for sponsors to support to our students in the village, so that they can continue their studies from primary school to university, as I have done.

A big part of your experience is the opportunity for you to make a real difference to the lives of the people in our village. Your visit to our village will help our villagers to get a better life and encourage them to build a good future for their families. I have a strong belief in helping our community to grow with your support to us.

I followed and keep in heart for all good advises from people to make and pushed me to be strong and always step up forward without rejection or sadly in my life, especially the advises from my parents was said;

“Father and Mother, don’t want any son and daughters to live without any knowledges because only knowledge can made our life better in the future, if father and mother are poor, father and mother are always  keep going and working to earn money for you to study.”

And they also said:

“''When you still have time in your life, so try to uses your knowledge to help our community better and better life and their living as father and mother did till now. If many people look down and laughing on you about our poor, please keep working and do the best with what you can do to help them; and they will remember our name and our work for the community in their mind forever in the future”''

I am and also all people around the world, would like to help and working for their communities and families to sustainable life and living.

I wishes, I can do more to my community to having an extra job that they could survived their families income and also support their child, sons and daughters to study at school and at university; to get better jobs to continues our help to communities back.

Especially, I could do more things to our villagers who living on the floating village around the Tonle Sap Lake who has only fishing career.

As now most of child, sons and daughters are non-school as they are not yet fishing primary school or High School, because they are going to help their families in fishing, cutting fish and working in the city to get money and send to parents in the village.

Every time, when I saw poor people walk on the street and in the village, I was very sad because it is the same of my family’s life and what we have met in the past and till now.

Some of people in the city, are always look down and saying bad to those poor families that walking on the street with dirty cloths and ask for their help. Why those rich people doing bad thing on the poor people? I see this actions for many and many times in Siem Reap.

I have more about my family life and also my person life but I just want to shares with you and all people around the world about our floating village’s life and about what we need.