In addition to hairdressing and sewing skills provided to the in-centered residents, AFESIP Cambodia has initiated a lot of skills in order to build their technical knowledge capacity, such as computer and English, farming, fish raising, small business and life skills….., so that they will have the opportunity to effectively improve their general knowledge and/or generate income after reintegration into their communities.

Fish raising is one of the selected areas to be given to the center’s residents, in addition to main skill selected by each of them, following marketing assessment by AFESIP staff. Fish farming program is able to principally reduce poverty of the family, by having fish for their daily food or sell for income. Every six month, training program team manages to raise catfish in the shelter, especially at Phnom Penh Tomdy shelter and it is now the 4th of its kind which was harvested late October, 2013. The harvest was done mostly on Saturdays when the residents are free from all the training. The residents happily love to participate as it surprises them by harvesting on their own team. The fish harvested was sold to the shelter at the cost equal to free market.

Catfish raising lessons was provided by professional trainers from outside experts. According to space available, we choose artificial facility in the center for training as you can see here in the picture. It is an artificial pond of which we dig the ground, spreading plastic sheet and water for use comes from well. The water used cannot be quite as much productive as natural water. Natural water means raising the fish in ponds, river and lakes……. Both space and water quality will dictate the size of the operation and the type of fish we raise ……. Although, the culture of fish here is not quite satisfactory, but it can also be pursued as a hobby.