FOOD SECURITY

Tudevtei soum, Zavkhan aimag Suvd-erdene

My name is Suvd-erdene. I have lived in Tudevtei soum, Zavkhan aimag. I live with my mom, sister and younger brother. My dad died eight years ago and we had hard time finding a way to survive. We lost all our animals and we moved into soum center to find a job. My mom got a part job in soum center. At almost the same time the ADRA gardening project started in our soum. The salary my mom received was not enough to feed four people. One day my mom asked us to join the project and made us promise that we would work hard. The three of us agreed on that, because we wanted to help my mom as best we could. The first two years we planted in the yard (hashaa) and had a small harvested, but enough to eat till December. We loved to work in the garden, and that made my mom happy. As a family we started to pickled the cucumbers and other vegetables so that we could sell them. This was our first income from the garden and this gave us great enthusiasm to continue.

In the third year (2007) my mom joined a cooperative and expanded the field size. Last summer my mom’s cooperative built a 20 tone root cellar. This winter we were able to eat vegetables and earned income from the garden through the cold months. Since we joined the project our life has gotten a lot better, we use to rent our hashass but this summer my mom and my brother built our own hashaa and our family moved there. Our family is happy to have our own hashaa. I have a plan to study in Ulaanbaatar (capital of Mongolia ) and therefore I need to earn my tuition fee, I plan to do this from the income provided the garden. I would like to say to ADRA people thank you very much for making our life happy.