Mrs. Tean Phy - Blind widow overcoming all odds

Step into Mrs Tean Phy's garden and you noticed that it is well kept, well pruned and clean. This would seem to be nothing out of the ordinary, except for the fact that the gardener is blind.

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Hailing from Chansar Commune, Mrs Tean Phy or Phy as she is known by friends, lost her husband in 2002, at the age of 32, having to fend for herself and her two daughters. In 2016, she started noticing that the white in her eyes were growing bigger and it was affecting her vision. Within a span of 6 months, she had lost almost completely lost her vision. Without the finances to see a specialist, she could only accept what had happened and move on with life, adapting on the go.

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Introduced by local commune officials, the Engelstoft Foundations team were pleasantly taken aback by her friendly demeanor and positive attitude, despite being visually impaired. Since joining in 2021, the positive attitude that she has spilled over to her work in the garden. With the help of her walking stick, Phy has managed to keep her home garden neat and tidy, regularly ridding her garden of weeds without any help. With the home garden, she is now able to sell extra produce in the local market, together with the chickens that she rears. Phy credits Engelstoft Foundations for giving her a sense of worth, being able to plant her vegetables in the garden and reap the fruits of her work. Phy, together with a bigger group of women that Engelstoft Foundations work with, form the HiS Women community that the Engelstoft Foundations team visits once every 2 weeks.

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Phy currently lives with alone. Her older daughter is married and lives close-by. Her younger daughter lives in Siem Reap City, in which she studies accounting in university and returns to visit often. n a program where, participants often feel discouraged if their crops are not growing well, Phy is an inspiration to others, showing that if she can do it, they should not give up and persevere on. Engelstoft Foundations is proud of what she has done and how she, amidst the adversities in life that she has met, still carries a smile on her face and a "can-do" attitude.

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Last edit: Jun 2024

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