Sunday, December 14, 2008

Monitoring Mission to Svay Rieng Province

On 09-10 December 2008, Mr. Kin Mengse (Program officer of CEDAC), Mr. San Sorn (the project staff of the Improvement of the most Vulnerable Families for Protection of Human Trafficking and Unsafe Migration), and Mr. Yim Sok Sophors (Project Manager) have conductd a internal monitoring for this project in purpose of understanding the general progress of the proejct especially to seek for strategies in progressing the project.

7 cooperating farmers were interviewed individually in 2 villages of 2 communes. It is to note most of them have applied the technique they have learned from the project, that is vegetable growing technique. Currently, they have prepared the vegetable garden and have grown some local varieties inside their homestead area. Remarkably, some farmers have not only use for family consumption, but also sell vegetable to neigboring farmilies to get further income for the families. One family that we have met during the monitoring raised that they have used money for selling of vegetable for their daily life, such as expense for children tuition, foods, etc.

Now, it is a good time for vegetable growing, so there will more farmers grow vegetable after they have completed rice harvesting in December.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Meeting at IDE Office, Phnom Penh

On 08 December 2008, I participated in a series meeting at IDE office from 2:30-5:00pm. The meeting consisted of totally 8 peoples which included 5 from IDE (among them 2 are foreigner technical advisors), 2 from PADEK , and 1 from CEDAC. The meeting aimed to follow up the progress of PEA selection process and to discuss on the preparation for the first meeting with interested PEA candidates that will be held in Svay Rieng and Prey Veng provinces on 16-17 December 2008.

At the inception phase of the meeting, each of NGO partner such as IDE, PADEK and CEDAC has shared the general overview of the progress of PEA selection process in each responsible target areas. I could know that there were only 3 people called to IDE by its radio broadcasting program but PADEK and CEDAC could get higher number of candidates who are interested of being PEAs which is around 4-5 interested farmers per commune have applied so far. However, the numbers of farmers who have applied for being PEAs have not yet been gathered by the project’s staff in some other communes so the information will be lastly updated on December 12, 2009. A step forward after sharing an overview of the progress in the field, Mr. Ros Kimsan, operational manger of IDE has presented the slides that he is going to present during the first meeting with interested PEA candidates.

Ultimately, we all who were in the meeting jointly decided the following points:
•There will be only 2 days for the first meeting with interested PEA candidates that 2 meetings will be organized in Svay Rieng province (one meeting at the morning and another at the afternoon) and another in Prey Veng
•One meeting will be organized in Kompong Trabek district, Prey Veng province with the invitation of interested PEA candidates from Baphnom and Prash Sdach districts as well.
•Mr. Sieng Kan, IDE’s staff, will inform to CEDAC and PADEK about the name of communes will be invited in the particular meeting (schedule and meeting venue)
•CEDAC and PADEK will send the name list of total interested PEA candidates to IDE on December 12, 2008.

RIU Prey Veng

Mr. Yim Sok Sophors went to Prey Veng and Svay Rieng province from 3-5 Dec 08 in order to meet with YCLs and CFA who is working for the project Linking Farmers with Market for Rural Prosperity in Baphnom district, Prey Veng province and Svay Chrum district, Svay Rieng provinces. Some activities have been done at Baphnom such as:

Meeting with YCLs

We have discussed to prepared activity work plan for the project Linking Farmers with Market for Rural Prosperity in December 2008. Several key activities are highlighted as follows:

-Organizing village general meeting in 7 villages that have not yet been organized
-Announcement to recruit farmers who are interested to be PEA (Private Extension Agent) for the project Lining Farmers with Market for Rural Prosperity
-Participating in workshop that will be organized by IDE (International Development Enterprises) in Prey Veng and Svay Rieng to select potential PEAs.
-YCL and CFA will organize group meeting with vegetable farmer producer groups in Baphnom and Kompong Trabek district, Prey Veng province. In Svay Rieng, YCL is going to continue working on organizing village general meeting due to this activity has not been accomplished
-2 cases studied written by YCL and CFA will be produced in this month
-Additionally, the project’s staffs also planned to conduct individual follow up visit to the target families as well, several questions will be raised during the discussion with them in order to seek for understanding on the situation of vegetable growing in those target families,
-1 YCL in Svay Rieng, named “Chhim Veasna” probably would like to resign from work due to he is sick and unable to continue working, he will inform me in December 2008 after the result of health check come out,

Additionally, I would like to emphasize that the main activity relating to RIU/ICF project in this month is mainly focused on selection of PEA (Private Extension Agency) who are the input suppliers to farmer producer groups.

2.Based on San Sorn (Farmer Community Facilitator in Svay Rieng province), Mr. Prak Sereyvath called him to host a visit from a group of people consist of 2 French and 1 Khmer-French nationality so he spend one day to host them as that group wanted to visite a commune in Svay Chrum district in order to set up a project relating to vegetable growing and they also wanted to include schoolteachers in the project as well. Based on San Sorn, the project will start in 2009.

Monday, December 1, 2008

RIU/ICF Baphnom, Prey Veng

24-25 November 2008: Mr. Yim Sok Sophors, the project manager of RIU/ICF (CEDAC) went to Baphnom district, Prey Veng province in order to review the project's progress with 2 market chain officers. Additionally, he also participated to a village general meeting at Trapaing Seka village of Sdao Koang commune.

Based on the discussion with market chain officers, generally there were around 25-30attended in each meeting and there are at least 10 farmers are interested in the project, they would like to join the vegetable farmer producer groups that will be faciliated by the project.

Mission to Prey Veng

26-27 November 2008: I went to Svay Rieng and Prey Veng provinces to work for the project IOM. During working there, I also went to Sithor Kandal district to see the general progress of the project. generally we could see that cooperating farmers have been preparing and applying the technique of vegetable growing they have learned from the project's staff.

Duringt the visit, Mr. San Sorn also distributed some vegetable seeds to farmers who have already prepared the vegetable garden so that they can use it for diversifying their crops as they have some own seeds. In addition to vegetable growing, it is expected that the number of cooperating farmers who grow vegetable will be increased significantly after rice harvesting, farmers will have sufficient time to involve in growing vegetable.

Meeting RIU/ICF

27 November 2008: Mr. Lang Seng Horng, Mr. Bun Penhpheak and I (Mr. Yim Soksophors) myself have attended a meeting with PADEK and IDE in term of the project RIU/ICF. Generally, we have continued to debate on PEA selection from the last meeting, such as schedule of PEA selection process, outline for the workshop and who will be involved, etc.

Ultimately, we are clear on what what we are going to do and the next meeting will be held on 09 December 2008. However, there is a need of discussion about the principles relating to the training topics to PEAs (Private Extension Agent) as well as the business of PEA relating to chemical fertilizer and pesticide. It is to note that CEDAC is a local NGOs working to promote family ecological agriculture so that this project needs to design based on the policy and stand of CEDAC in term of agriculture and rural development.