Strawberries and child support; a Thai partnership
Mother of three, Mhee Saesong, a strawberry farmer from Chiang Mai in the north of Thailand, has always struggled alongside her husband to provide for her family. She describes how, in the past, when her two older children became sick, she was unable to afford to take them to hospital.
But that changed following the birth of her third child, Monluck, and the introduction of a nationwide child support grant worth just under US$20 per month. “I was so happy when I heard this news,” Mhee says. “Before, I didn’t have money to take my children to see doctors.”
The grant, for which 117,000 children from low-income families have been registered, was introduced by the Thai government following advocacy carried out by the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF.
