My name is So Sokhom. I am 42 years old farmer, lives in Okoh village, Okrieng commune, Sambo district with my daughter. In 2016, I started working as a health volunteer. Later, in 2017 till now, I am working as Village Malaria Worker testing malaria for fever patients. I want to become a village malaria volunteer because I want to help people from my village. Another reason to become a volunteer is that my sister was a former VMW. And I took her role because she passed away. I learned basic malaria knowledge from the Health center. Because of my commitment as a volunteer, even in the night time, the community respects me. I see my work is helpful to the community because I can provide health education and help in distributing mosquito nets. I feel that I also benefit from being a volunteer because I learn a lot of malaria knowledge, and they give me some incentives at the HC meeting.
One big challenge for me is I have difficulty convincing people with severe malaria and pregnant women to go to HC because they have no money to spend on transportation. Another challenge to my work is transportation from my home to a patient’s house because of a very long distance. I only have a bicycle. So, I couldn’t go to them when their home is so far. As a suggestion, it would be great they can help me solving the transportation problem. And I request to increase the incentives to motivate us.
