By Alison Darcy, CUFA Project Officer

“My community investor are like my second mother and father. My life has changed so much and I don’t know how to thank them.”

Become a Community Investor by June 30 to receive an almost immediate tax deduction in your 2014 tax return. Your tax deductible donations enable people in Cambodia or Timor-Leste to transform their lives.

Thanks to his community investor we have been able to provide Ut with business and animal raising skills, and now he’s a successful pig and chicken raiser. Ut learnt from the CUFA training what food he should feed his pigs, how to make natural fertilizer, what medicine to give his animals and how to give pigs and chickens injections.

Recently, I had the opportunity to meet Ut as part of my work with CUFA. It was really humbling to see how he his life has really changed because of the program. He was so proud to show me how he upgraded his house, before he had palm leaves walls and now because of his pig raising has walls made of wood.

Ut is a real entrepreneur; he also has a coconut tree and sells cold coconut juice as a side business (given how hot it was in Cambodia when I visited, this is a really good idea!) As a pig raiser Ut buys piglets, looks after them and when they are healthy and strong sells them for a higher price to the local market. He’s been really successful and with healthy pigs he’s been able to use the profits to buy more piglets and medicine. He’s also been able to save more at his local credit union, provide his parents with money to help them, bought his kids a bike to get to school and now doesn’t have to sell the rice he grows to make more money – so the family has more to eat.

For me personally, it was an amazing experience to meet Ut and to see first-hand how the VE program, in particular the quarterly training sessions is helping him and his community. Ut and his wife were so hospitable and friendly, and his gratitude to his community investor was obvious. Just when I was about to leave he said “Please thank my community investor for me. They are like my second mother and father. My life has changed so much and I don’t know how to thank them”.

Even though I had a translator I could see before the translation, through his facial expressions, huge smile and hand gestures how much he valued the program and community investors support.

With your help we can help many other people like Ut become successful village entrepreneurs and help lift their families out of poverty.

Your tax deductible donations enable people to transform their own lives in Cambodia and Timor-Leste.

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Challengers visit CUFA Children’s Financial Literacy Program (CFL), a program delivering financial literacy to 12,000 children in more than 40 schools across Cambodia, funded on an annual basis by the fundraising efforts of the CUFA Leadership Challengers.

If you’re interested in finding out more about the challenges CUFA runs for corporate teams and individuals please call CUFA on 1300 490 467. To donate towards the CFL program please visit www.cufa.com.au/donate