Friend –

Ngoy Vorn moved to Pursat province in Cambodia in the early 1980s, when she was a widow raising three children. She survived by growing rice on a small plot of land. It has been a difficult way to make a living because she is always short on water.

"Sometimes, I can't even get enough water for one harvest," Vorn says. "It just makes me want to give up on farming."

Water for drinking can also be a problem for her and others in her village, a place called Por Pi. Many of the families here do not have a well, and they get water from streams and ponds. Vorn says it's not healthy water: "Three or four times a month we had to spend money on health care, for diarrhea and stomach problems."

To fix this problem, Vorn and about a dozen of her neighbors have started a business to purify, bottle, and sell drinking water. They donate more than 25 percent of their profits to the village in hopes that these resources will someday help solve the water shortage.

This business emerged from a savings and loan group Oxfam's partner Srer Khmer (SK) helped initiate among a group of rice farmers. It's part of an effort to help villagers diversify the way they earn money to make them a little less vulnerable to the uncertain rainfall brought on by climate change that can affect even the best rice farmers.

Friend – around the world, women struggle to get the training, financing, and equipment they need to work their way out of poverty. With your support, Oxfam is able to help them get these resources and drive sustained improvements for women in their communities.

Read more about Oxfam's work helping women in Cambodia and around the world.

Moul Phally, a rice farmer who works on this project, says they pump water from the well, remove any sediment, and run it through a charcoal filter and ultraviolet light before bottling it in re-usable plastic containers.

"Now that we have this purified water, not so many people fall ill," Phally says. "If they want clean water they can just buy it."

So far the clean water enterprise has brought in more than $10,000 in its first year of operation and is self-sustaining. Vorn says she hopes her community takes the contributions from the water bottling plant and uses them to help farmers grow more food.

Those involved in the business can invest in raising small livestock like chickens and pigs, and growing vegetables. Diversifying their income helps reduce their vulnerability to drought and floods. SK and other Oxfam partners are working with 5,250 farmers in three provinces on this initiative; 75 percent of them are women.

Friend, with your help, Oxfam and our partners are helping women and farmers through multiple initiatives, including training programs like the one with Srer Khmer, Saving for Change groups, and more. We're working to combat issues of poverty from every angle – and we couldn't do it without you.

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