MUIDS Social Studies: Economics

Cambodia Rural Poverty Simulation

Directions: As part of our unit on Microeconomics, you will learn about budgeting,
choice, opportunity cost and trade-offs by participating in a simulation as a family in
rural Cambodia. Much like in real-life, your ability to lead a successful family will
depend on a combination of good decision making and luck. Throughout the
simulation, you will have to deal with real-life problems that rural people in
developing countries must face daily. In Part 1 you will create the characters in your
family and design their personalities. You will make choices about what investments
to make in the family members including education, health-care, food, housing and
access to clean drinking water. In Part II you will lead your family through a 6-month
simulation. When problems happen, you will have to make decisions which will
affect the members of your family and cause you to make difficult choices. You will
also keep track of an ongoing budget with income, expenses and savings. In Part III
you will reflect on the successes, failures and challenges you faced throughout the
simulation.

Your Family Number: 3

Your Familys Province: Kampot
Family Housing Choice:

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Characters:
_________________________________________________________
_______
You will have between 6 and 9 characters.
List their type (ex. Mother, grandmother, male child 14-18, etc) on the lines
below.
Once you have made the list, you must change the order to the following:
Male (oldest youngest); Female (oldest youngest) and number your list.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Character: Father
Character: Male Child (14-18)
Character: Male Child (4-7)
Character: Male(0-4) -25health
Character: Mother
Character: Female Child (4-7)

Family picture

MUIDS Social Studies: Economics

Character Summaries:
___________________________________________________________________
________
Character Summaries should include name, age, personality and interests.
Families with less characters should have more in-depth descriptions.
As you make decisions throughout, try to imagine as if these people are your
real family. In Part III, you will have to explain your decisions and how
you believe they helped improve the overall well-being of your family.
Your summary should also include:
o Does the character attend school?
o Is the character going to be working abroad?
o How many days per week does the character work?
o What kind of food and water do they consume?
o Do they have access to health check-ups and sanitary products?
You will make these decisions in the beginning and they will apply to month 1.
All of the information in this sheet must match your budget sheet!
There is an optional 5-point bonus for any group that creates a family picture.

Mother (Pluemji)

-45 years old

-Not attend to schools.
- Work 7 days a week
-Dirty water

Father (Ronaldo)

-45 years old

-Not attend to schools.
-Work 7 days
-Dirty water

week2 (sick)

Male Child (Di Maria)

-17 years old

-Not Attend to schools.
-Work aboard 5 days
-Dirty water

Male Child (Ibrahimovic)

-4 years old
-Attend to schools
-no working
- Clean water

Male Child (Neymar)

-6 years old

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-Attend to schools.
-Work 2day
-Dirty water
Female Child (Pogba)

-7 years old
-Attend to schools.
-Work2day
-Dirty water

Mother, her name is Plumeji. (45years old) She is not a smart woman but she wants her
family to live easily. So, she works 5 days per week. So, lets talk about her background.
When she was young, her family was very poor. She couldnt study in high school. She was
a small girl who smiles all the time. She graduated only grade 6. Her dream is wanting to be
a wealthy girl. Normally, she has to wake up 5 am to go to work everyday. She opened a
small sport arena. Her salary is 20 dollar per month. She also has a sanitary for every month
Ronaldo, He is the chief of the family who works 7 days per week. His graduation is not
quite good. He graduated only grade 10. His background was terrifying. When he was
young, he was a drug dealer and he was the alcoholic too. But when he met Plumeji, he
changed himself for his family. He ignored all the bad things or anything that was bad and
started to have a better life with his family. One of the reason that he was changing himself
was he wanted their children to get safe and be a good citizen for Cambodia. He earns 50.4
dollar for his salary. In the first 3 months of the year, he doesnt have any sanitary because
he wants to save money for the family. In month 4, hes working harder. So, he has a
sanitary.
Di maria, he is a adultescent guy in the family. He is the one that works abroad in Thailand.
When he was grade 10, he was an exchange student in Thailand. He really loves Thailand.
So, he had a dream that once in his life, he will work there for his whole life. He graduated
from the Agricultural Biochemistry from Royal University of Phanom Pehn. Now, hes
working in an organization which is necessary for Thailand. His office is in the ministry of
agriculture. His salary is 28 dollar. About his health, we dont know anything because hes
working aboard.
Ibrahimovic, he is the youngest boy in his family. He attends school everyday. He wants to
be a doctor in the future. The reason he wants to be a doctor is because he wants
Cambodian people to have a better health and better life. So, he is really focusing in class
and always tries his best in all classes at all time. He has a lot of friends since he was young.
He always has responsibility. However, his attitude is very bad, he swears a lot. The school
has called his parents to talk and discuss about him already. His family is very worried and
concerned about his future.

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Neymar, he doesnt attend to school. Neymar is a football lover. So, he asked his dad for
the permission to be a ball boy in local football team. His favourite football team is Liverpool.
His dream is to be a professional football player in Liverpool FC. So, he never give up to
work 20 days per month. Nevertheless, he is not good at learning. He is a literature which
cant read and write. However, he is really good at football but his parents cant support him
very much because they are very poor. Neymar only has a ball at home to practice. Every
lunch, he will go to the plain near his house and play football with his friends. He said, IF
YOU ARE HAVING A HARD TIME DOING SOMETHING, IT DOESNT MEAN ITS
IMPOSSIBLE. He always say this quote to himself all the time when he gets sad or is having
a hard time in football. He earns 5 dollar for his salary.
Pogba, she is the youngest girl in the family. Pogba is very genius. When she was 5 years
old. Pogba can speak english very well. Since, any class she has learnt, she always get an
A and she definitely be a top student in every year. So, Pogba is planning to get a
scholarship when shes in grade 10 or enter in university to go aboard. Shes really wants to
be a doctor because her mom died from the serious disease and she doesnt want anyone in
her family to die anymore. However, shes alway proud of oneself. So, she doesnt have a lot
of friends to talk with. She works only 2 days a week.

MUIDS Social Studies: Economics

Monthly Diary:
___________________________________________________________________
________
In this section you need to keep track of the following:
All major events (positive and negative) that happen to your family. You also
need to keep track of how the event affects your characters income, costs
and health.
Any choices that you make and how the choice affects your characters
income, costs and health.
All choices must include an explanation which shows that you understand the
trade-offs.
It is essential that you keep good, detailed notes.
Month1: In First month of the years, everything isnt going to be good. We dont have
any saving money. So, we have been decided to save money such using dirty water
and no education. In this month, mother, father, Di Maria, Neymar and Pogba are the
one who worked for the family. Which mean almost everyone in the family are
working. For mother, she worked 28 days per month and gained 33.6. Meanwhile,
father and Di Maria also worked 28 days per month and gained 50.4 each. For
young children, Neymar and Pogba worked 20 days per month and gained about 4-5
dollar per each month. All of the member in this family were stay in the country
except Di Maria.The familys member who still stay in the country except
Ibrahimovic, will needed to pay Tax and Bribes normally. For food their eat a same
kind of food everyday which is the rice and vegetables. And this family their live in
the Corrugated metal house. So, now in the first month this family will have a first
saving money which is 8.05 dollar.
Month 2: In this month is a second month of the year. Its have a lot of change and
many things difference from last month. In this month Father becomes sick because
father is the one who work hard for his family and he also have a very low of health
and wellness. So, his salary will decrease 40 percent from his salary. It become 30.24
dollar. Which is 20 dollar lower than last month. And this is effect of when father
became sick.
Luckily, we got the food aid from the Cambodian government. Its very important for
this bad situation. Now, we have 3 productive member, So we got 30 percent
decrease in food cost (all month). This difference makes income decreases and total
expenses is also decreases in this month. This month income will decreases to 123.24
and total expenses will decreases to 117.21. For this month family still have savings
money about 6.

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Month 3: In this month the third month of this year. The good news is no one become
sick. But disaster is coming, we got the LANDMINE. Fortunately, No one hit the
mine. We are extreme of good luck. By the way, Pogba is the person who have
chance to hit a mine. In this month the bad news is we dont get any aid from the
Cambodian government. After all, this month kind of the same with the first month
and difference from last month. So, over all income will be 143.3 and total expenses
will be 135.35.

Month 4: In this month we have a bad news and good news. The good news is there
are 3 character have chance to get sick. Ibrahimovic is the one who have chance to
get sick but he doesnt. And the other good news is In this month, we dont get any
disaster. But the bad news is we dont get any aid from Cambodian government too.
Oh!!! in this month, were very impress to Cambodian government. They give us the
Micro-Financing Loan which make Plumji get double income. We have a huge of
budget right now plus the saving money from last three month and its become more
than 50. So, we have plan to buy the sanitary for everyone health and wellness to
make health average become 40% increase than other month. We also plan to buy a
clean water for every health too. So, now total expenses will increase to 182.99. And
money total saving will be around 16.14.

Month 5: In this month it was a badly month for everyone in the family. No one get
sick again but, unfortunately, we get an unexpected thing happen its disaster. Which
is a serious disease. Plum Ji get a Japanse. Sadly, Pluem Ji passed away, we try
to save her life by our saving money as much as we can but it doesnt work. This
disaster affected family a lot because Plum Jid is the main money maker for her
family. She opened a arena which can help her family. So now her husband
Ronaldo will look after her arena.
On the otherwise, we not always have bad luck. In this month we got a aid from
Cambodia government. Which is very important for our family. This kind of aid will
increase our income for everyone. So now father income will be up to 120.96 which
a lot more than previous month. Di maria got 60.48. Neymar got 6. And Pogba got
4.8. For over all income for this month we got 192.24. Which made a quite huge
amount of saving money. So now we spent for some of our money for family life
quality.

MUIDS Social Studies: Economics

`Month 6: Finally, we came to the last month. This month kind of a pretty good month
Fortunately, we got no disaster and no sickness. But the bad thing is we dont have
enough money for Di maria to bring back home to see family after he went to
working, but we still have some saving money to take care of our family life quality(a
lot better than others month). We use some of our money for quality of food, water,
health check, sanitary and education for children. For this month we only need father
and di maria for working. Which mean no working for children in this month. So, now
our total expenses will be increase a lot.
Throughout the simulation, we faced two big disasters which are landmine
( month 3) and serious disease(month 5). We lost one of our family members from
the serious disease (mother) and the least member was survived. In month two
father got sick that affect family and in the month 5 mother got sick too and this
disease make we lost one of the important member in our family.
For the first month, we sent one of the smartest boy in our family to work
abroad because we saw that the family having a hard time to plan about money
saving. Which mean we dont have any money to survive if we havent sent him
abroad. And this is one of our family big decision. Ibrahimovic, the youngest children
that need to study and sent to school because we saw that they are still young and they
can have a great future ahead if they have education and maybe can apply his
dream job which is doctor to help family. We let everyone to be work hard except
Ibrahimovic. For the first 4 month, Fortunately, we got the micro-financing from
Cambodian government which made our family have a double wages for all the
female in our family. Therefore, in the least 3 month of this year, we got a lot of
money. Everyone worked hard to survive and collecting some saving money
because we prepare for incase of emergency happen and disease. We decided to
make father, mother and big brother to work everyday. And two young sister and
brother work only 5 days per week. In month 5, Pleum Ji was dead from the disease.
We lost 30 dollars to save her life. We tried to save her life as much as we can but
no miracle helped us to lets her even breath.
Actually, the things that we care the most is saving money because we think
that if we have a lot of savings today, life will be easier in the future. We will get more
and whatever we wanted. We think that if we work hard today, our future will be
better and easier.
In the future, we planned that when all the child grew up to be a juvenile child,
we decided to let them work full time which make our family get more money. So, if
we get more money, definitely we will get a better life. Maybe, we will decide to bring
Di maria back to see his family that he didnt see for long time. In the future, I think
our family will have enough money. So, Pogba will be able to go aboard and

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accomplished her dream. For Pluem Ji, we were planned to make a funeral for her
death and we will invite all of relatives to this funeral. Neymar will focus more on
football and we will support him as much as we can. However, one of the oldest child
might go back to work abroad and send money back like he used to do but he
always keep in touch to his family.