Ms. Khamdaphone Xayasen, 36 years old, lives in Daktaorknoy Village, DakChueng District, Sekong Province. She was a farmer and gardener. She also was a part of the Lao women's union at the village level and she had never participated in any activities on natural resources management. She had no understanding and was unfamiliar with this kind of work. When the project came, she joined and was selected as one of the Natural Resources Management committees. She was responsible for the economic task. At the same time, she was also the head of the non-time forest planting group in the village.
"The project gave me the opportunity to participate in the exchange program of natural resource management in Udomxay province. I learned about cultivation, growing gingers, beekeeping, protected areas management, and the conservation of non-timber forest products which improved my knowledge of understanding this work. I’ll take the lessons from the program to spread into words to the villagers and will encourage women to participate more in the activities, especially in protecting and managing natural resources" Khamdaphone said.
