47 Years Old
Village: Sralao
Commune: Sralao
District: Malai
Province: Banteay Meanchey
Training: Barber
Injury: Landmine - 2000 as a farmer when he was taking his vegetables across the Thai border for sale.
Prior to commencing training with CWARS [as Lom Orng was then named], Mr Chen was a farmer. To support his family he would take his produce long distances on horrifically poor quality roads for sale in the Thai markets. This difficult work also only produced minimal earnings. After his injury, this work became almost impossible.
Now that he has been formally trained as a barber, Mr Chen can earn much more money, without the arduous journey across to Thailand. His wife also does some farming and sells the produce at the local markets to supplement his income.
Mr Chen has 6 children, and is able to support them all, and send them all to school to receive and education.
On average Mr Chen sees 4-5 people per day, usually in the evening when the workers in the community are returning from work in Thailand. He earns 1500 Riel per haircut. With his spare time during the day, he constructs fish traps to sell to his customers and helps his wife with the farming.
Mr Chen was an inventive and creative man, looking for ways to improve his life in any way possible. The creativity to build fish traps, cut hair and farm, shows he is quite ambitious also. He showed a great sense of humour, laughing and joking regularly, and clearly had the full support of his wife.