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:

Your Familys Province: Kampot

Family Housing Choice:

MUIDS Social Studies: Economics

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.
7.

Character:
Character:
Character:
Character:
Character:
Character:
Character:

Grand Father
Father
Male child 18 years old
Male Child 17 years old
Male Child 10 years old
Mother
Female Child 15 years old

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!

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1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

There is an optional 5-point bonus for any group that creates a

family picture.
Grand Father 60 years old Lincoln,
Personality Talkative, Interests: Sleep
60- years-old grandfather who can give you smile and laughter.
Lincoln is a really talkative person, he likes to tell story about the
past and how me met grandmother. Many times he likes to do
something funny and silly to make everybody in the family smiles,
even thou he might end up hurting himself from his joke sometimes.
He works 7 days like mother and father, everyone in the family try
to let him stop but he always reply the same answer back, Im not
old yet, why do I need to stop working? Its such a waste of time.
His only interest is sleeping and dreaming about his stories with
grandmother.
Father 32 years old Kevin,
Personality: Hard worker, Interests: Making more money
A hard working man who always makes sure that his family has
good food to eat, good place to sleep, and try his best to make their
life better. Hes a really good role model for every father on this
planet and has wonderful skills of leader. Sadly, the only interest for
him is making more money so his family can have better condition
of life. He never says tried to anyone, never cry in front of everyone
even thou he works so hard that his entire body can break.
Male Child 18 years old David,
Personality: Kind, Interests: Basketball
David is the oldest son in the family, he work 6 days like grandfather
but in couple of months he plan to work more. Hes been seeing his
mom and dad work so hard since when he was a little child and
because his role as a next leader push him to work even more hard
for his brothers and sister. When he has free time, mostly he will
spend it with his neighbor playing basketball; his favorite sport.
Male Child 17 years old Justin,
Personality Bad Boy, Interests, Swag
The most handsome son in this family is Justin, but what you didnt
know was his physical is totally opposite with his personality. His
face might look handsome and full with charms that wherever he
walks, every women need to stop and look by. Well, many times he
gets involve in a fight because of girls and alcohol. He likes to act
like a bad guy (even thou hes poor). Kevin and Danny are so worry
about him because of his attitude and how he responds during
familys dinner.
Male Child 10 years old Johnny,
Personality: Hyper, Interests: Football
The youngest boy in this house, hes a kid with bright smile. He stills
studying and only does little job in order to focus more on his study.
Everyone in the family loves him because he is so innocent, the way

MUIDS Social Studies: Economics

he respects adults, and lastly when he tells everybody to smile

when they need to face the problem. His biggest dream is to
become a professional football player. Johnny can play every sport,
but his favorite is football. He is a player for the school and because
of him the school won gold medal from football every years.
6. Mother 30 years old- Danny,
Personality: Hot tempered, Interests: Making more money
The most powerful mother in this world, Danny a 30-years-old
mother is who Im talking about. She is very nice and responsible
mom, but dont you dare make her angry. Because when she does
shell transform into monster that can destroy everything on this
planet. Her personality, well, hot tempered is the most one the suit
to her. And her only interest is same as her husband which is
making more money, she dream about having her own house and
nice clothes for herself and her family.
7. Female Child 15 years old Tiffany,
Personality: Lazy, Interests: Beauty
The only daughter in this family is Tiffany, dont really want to say
this but comparing with slot shes ever lazier than that. The only
thing she focus is beauty, she likes to keep herself pretty so that
one day, there will be a guy who like her and ask her to be his life
mate. Comparing to all children in this family Kevin and Danny
worried about Tiffany the most. Like Ive mention shes super lazy,
not that smart, focus only in beauty and finding husband.

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.

MUIDS Social Studies: Economics

Month 1:
Everybody in the family life was normal, excepted that 3 children
needed to be sent away to Thailand in order to gain more money. Those 3
children are David, Justin, and Tiffany. Now, only Johnny left studying in
the school, but it was good for Danny and Kevin because they didnt have
to pay for 7 people shelters, water, and taxes. The family lived in normal
wood house but was given 3 meals per day and clean water for drinking.
Their health was normal, only Lincoln was kind of below, but that was
because hes already old and have chance of getting sick. After sending
those three kids away, their incomes had increase, for David and Justin
were from 1.40 to 1.80 per day and for Tiffany was from 1.00 to 1.40 per
day. Everything has both sides, same as this family, even thou three kids
can earn more income, but they cannot contact their family and there was
high chance for them to get selling to sex market too. The only thing they
gave back to their family each month was money. Saving in this month
was still less, but they tried very hard to earn more for better living
condition. Everybody worked 7 days except for Johnny that allowed
working only 2 days. Income for this month is 290.4 but if minus with
expenses 184.76, they have 105.64 total saving.
Month 2: Character 1 become sick

Receive Food Aid

In the second month Lincoln was sick, so we needed to pay more

money to cure him, the rest of the family was fine. This month was kind of
special for them because theyve just received food aid or you can call it
free food. An international organization partners with the Cambodian
government decided to give free food to poor family. This helped them
decrease their food cost for the rest of the month and continue giving until
month 6. Their incomes were still the same but the saving decrease
because of Lincoln sickness. Kevin started to feel worry about Lincoln
because he was already old and hard to cure. For saving, this month the
family earned more saving than last month, the amount of saving was
215.24.
Month 3: Kevin and David have chance of getting sick and was about to
get landmine explosion.
This month the family was risky of getting sick and almost
destroyed because of natural disaster. Kevin and David have chance of
getting sick in this month and there was good news for Lincoln, his
sickness already have cure. The family almost got destroys because of
landmine explosion. The explosion can causes family member death 50 %
and no income for the whole months, but luckily, there is just only 50 %
that they might get hit. The result that came out was they didnt get hit;

MUIDS Social Studies: Economics

everybody in the family was safe. At first when the news came out about
land expose, Danny almost pack up everything and get ready for
escaping, but Kevin who still has consciousness calm her down. We need to
make sure whether the news is right or not, this is what he told his wife.
Because of Lincoln sickness for last month, the family needed to pay for an
emergency, but now since he was already fined the familys saving then
increase. This month their saving was increase to be 445.

Month 4: character 4 and 7 almost get sick

Fourth month was normal, nothing really happens on this month.
Justin and Tiffany almost get sick because of their hard-working, at first
David told them to rest but at the end he cant handle his little brother
and sister spirits of working. They wrote some notes to their family
wishing they will receive them. After reading their sons and daughter
notes, Danny cried because she missed her children a lot and thought of
sending them back home. Again, Kevin refused to send them back; he told
her that This is what we need to give to them in order to grow up and
becoming a strong person. Surprisingly, their saving has increase to
574.12 now.
Month 5: character 2, 3, 7 almost get sick, Lincoln almost sick from
disease (no more disaster) Receive Aid (Government Subsidies income
increase 20%)
At first this month seems to be the worst month ever for this family
because Kevin, David and Tiffany almost got sick and worst of worst was
when Lincoln the weakest member of the family almost got serious
disease. This disease can be healed but there was less percentage chance
of surviving because Lincoln was already old, so his health percentage
wasnt high. Thanks to Jesus, again he survived without any emergency
payment and their family was lucky again because they received aid from
the government. This aid has an effect on familys income which was one
female character will have double income for this month and followed to
the next month. Their saving for this month was now 693.24.

(Month 6 Diary will be in separated file)