Prey Veng - situated along the riverbank, Mrs. Nourn Sreytoch, a pregnant women in her 6th month, is looking at people stocking their belongings on a few boats while she is waiting for her boat to arrive.
Sivgim Sreytoch, like many others in Prekchrey Village in Preyveng Province, have received humanitarian aid from CARE International in Cambodia for a relief on flood disaster occurred in the province which has affected 33,076 families.
The flood spread throughout the province in August 2018 due to the dam burst in Lao and
heavy rain and the communities along the river in Preyveng in lower land, including Prekchrey Village, has the most impact from the flood Prey Veng province is located in the floodplain of the Mekong and Tonle toch . Most of the area of province are vulnerable to flood from Mekong and its tributaries. Unlike in the previous years, this time, the flood caused many destructions to the communities and really had a big impact to everyone’s livelihood.
“This year we have a big flood not like the previous years. We only have a few high hill to stay during flood and some of these were built by CARE in the previous years. Some safe hills are built by the commune,” said Mr. Nourn Kol, Commune Chief of Kompong Prasat, Preyveng province, one of the affected commune.
This brought a lot of hardship to many vulnerable families including food security and health.
Sreytoch said: “Being pregnant is very hard to travel around especially during this flood; it is very slippery and finding food is hard too, so I stay at home alone with my kid while my husband is working for construction place.”
CARE Cambodia with many years of experiences in humanitarian response in this area has acknowledged the scale of this disaster and decided to act quickly to response to the urgent needs of affected families.
With support from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies (MACP)CARE started conducting thorough and transparent procedure to identify the most vulnerable affected families, and Sreytoch’s family is included. Among the humanitarian aid pack, there are food and basic-need material for clean and hygiene living including Water Filter.“I am really thankful to CARE for giving me these,” Sreytoch said, “it really can help us during this hash period of time. I like the water filter the most because I couldn’t find dried wood to boil water, and this water filter can give me enough clean water for my whole family; I feel safe now and I believe everyone feel the same way.”
Even though the humanitarian aids is not able to make them last very long, it can provide
enough space for affected families to move on and work on recovering their livelihood back without worry during this critical time.Mr. Nourn Kol, Commune Chief of Kompong Prasat, Preyveng province said: “These aids are really important for everyone because it can help them to survive during this harsh time and have a proper space to work on rebuilding their livelihood.”
Even though not everyone affected by the flood can received the aids, they all see this procedure of aids delivery as transparency and answering to their needs. The community members, the commune and village chief claimed that CARE relief is not late; it came on the right time, even though the water is already go down, but the people is still needed the support to recover their livelihood.
Learn more about flood response overview >