HMB1 Post Evaluation

Ms. Yonekurayukiko (a former representative of JVC Cambodia)will conduct a post evaluation of project, entitled "Happy Mountain Bird / Ensuring Access to Primary Education for Children of the Poorest Families) from 3-17 September 2009 at Takeo and Prey Veng provinces. The staff members of internal quality control of CEDAC's Field Program will participate in that important event.

The evaluation team will discover the improvement of livelihood of the target poorest families after the withdraw of the project implementation for 2 years as well as to follow up the exact progress of primary education of the target poorest children. Additionally, the practical experiences of implementing this project will be compiled for a widely dissemination both national and international levels.

It is to note that on 02 September 2009, Ms. Yone has arrived to Cambodia for doing this task. She traveled with CEDAC staff to go to Tramkak district, Takeo province on 3 Sep. Addtionally, the team planed to meet altogehter on September 07, 2009 to discuss in detail about the preparation and development of questionnaires.

Meeting with other NGO partners

On Tuesday, 18 June 2009, I (Yim Sok Sophors, a staff member of CEDAC) participated in the meeting with representatives of the other NGOs like HKI and GAA. The meeting was taken place at Welthungerhilfe/GAA office, Phnom Penh. The following are the names of participants:

1. Mr. Yim Soksophors, CEDAC
2. Mr. Aminuzzaman Talukder, HKI
3. Mr. Hou Kroeun, HKI
4. Mr. Walter Berier, Welthungerhilfe/GAA
5. Mrs. Christina Warning, Welthungerhilfe/GAA
6. Mrs. Angela Kahl, Welthungerhilfe/GAA

The meeting was organized among the NGO partners that have received grant support from the European Commission (EC) for the purpose of discussing about the how to conduct baseline survey, end line survey and global indicator with the technical support from the international consultant. At the end of the meeting, each NGO partner has agreed to conduct jointly baseline survey, end line survey and global indicators. A budget package is developed with the contribution of all NGO partners. Additionally, GAA act as the coordinating NGO that facilitate the coordinating meeting among all NGO partners from this month to end of this year.

Survey and Training Service for HEKS and CCK

Mr. Eung Seng and Mr. Sok Thea have recently conducted the survey and training services for HEKS. The title of the survey is "the family of Child Sponsorship Program (CSP)of HEKS-Cambodia in Takeo and Kampong Chhnang provinces". The purpose of this survey is to find out what are the real needs and proper intervention support of the five CSP’s families to improve their living condition in the future. The results from the survey will be the input for the program implementation to support the CSP's families in the year 2010. The study was conducted with all five CSP's families based on questionnaires which were used to interview students, household heads, school principals, neighbors and village chiefs. The study was conducted from 18 to 22 July 2009.

On the other hand Mr. Eung Seng and Mr. Sok Thea have also provided the training service CCK. The aim of the training is to provide general theory and steps of the baseline study and share real experiences related to the baseline study which has been conducted by CEDAC. The training lasts two days from 16 to 17 July 2009 at CCK's office in Koh Andeth district of Takeo province. The training has attended by ten participants from CCK's staff and involved people; in which 50% of them are women.

Mr. Kin Mengse (second from the right), program officer of CEDAC, accompanied with other project staff visited SRI rice field in target village of a joined project between GAA and CEDAC.

Rally against WTO in Hong Kong, 2005

1 CEDAC staff and other 3 representatives of FNN participated in the international conference on WTO.

Sorn Vansoy, representative of Farmer and Natural Net (FNN) in Cambodia, took photograph with African children during the world forum in Mali, 2007.

Come on, having lunch with me. It is delicious as it is the cooked rice from SRI practices.

The indigenous farmers learned how to transplant rice seedlings in rows / square pattern.

How the indigenous people carry the rice seedlings now? Just look the photo!

The indigenous minority farmers in Sok San commune, Koh Ngiek district, Mondulkiri province, Cambodia visited the rice field after transplanting, which followed to the SRI principles. This technique has introduced by CEDAC since the rainy season rice production in 2008.

I participated in the world food sovereignty in Mali,
Africa in 2007. The forum has discussed a lot how to ensure the food sovereignty especially among the poorest families, small landholders, fisher folk, indigenous people, etc. Hundreds people from different institutions, NGOs, farmers organizations participated in the forum.

The photo above is the photo of Mr. Yi Kimthan, a main CEDAC staff in Baphnom at that time. During the time, we had worked to promote family ecological agricultural among the poorest families. Those agricultural techniques are vegetable growing, compost making, multi-purpose tree planting, System of Rice Intensification (SRI), etc. Additionally, the drilled wells distributed to farmers in order to enable them have access to clean drinking water and they have water for watering their crops especially in the dry season. The poorest families normally have small land and lack of capacity to grow vegetables even for family consumption.

I like this photo very much. It remind me a very good memory of working in Baphnom with former CEDAC's staff. Walking from CEDAC office in Chheu Kach market to target villages during the flood season. The photo from left to right, Yi Kim Than, Yim Sok Sophors, Heang Khaylay and Heng Seha.

It was a very good time for me to learn about Community Forestry with FAO in Siem Reap province in 2000.

M&E team meeting

The M&E team meeting was conducted on August 07, 2009 at CEDAC office. Miss Pheng Chandy, Meas Somica, Chhin Chhunhoir, Leng Huch, Phor Phira, Nuon Piseth, Vang Seang, Hay Leakhena, Eung Seng, Sin Phoan Ly Kesa and Yim Sok Sophors attended the meeting. Generally, we have shared the information on the activities and results that have been accomplished in July 2009. The activity plan for August 2009 was also prepared during the meeting. It is to note that Mr. Chhin Chhunhoir and Mr. Nuon Piseth have presented how to link the document and MIS system of the project SfR (Saving for Self-Reliance).

It was interesting to learn about that as the participants are working involved in that task. It is expected that the training on this skill will be held as soon as possible so that the participants can learn and apply for improving their work effectively. On the other hand, the team members plan to conduct the study on impact of global financial crisis to the livelihood of farmers in PRS-EU project, Kampong Speu province next month.

Lack of Clean Water, Sanitation Costs Millions: Group

By Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
03 August 2009

The lack of clean water and sanitation is costing Cambodia around half a billion dollars every year in poor health and a loss of tourists, a study has found.

In a discussion titled, “Water is Medicine,” Jaehyang So, manager of the World Bank’s Water and Sanitation Program, said that a study commissioned by the organization on economic impacts caused by the lack of water and sanitation shows that Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam lose around $9 billion every year.

“All of a sudden, the lack of sanitation became not a problem of the poor person that doesn’t have access to sanitation, but it became a real constraint to economic growth in the country,” she told an audience of health experts and policymakers last week in Washington.

In Cambodia, knowledge and access to sanitation and clean water are limited, while less than 30 percent of rural population has decent latrines. But advocates say their knowledge about sanitation has increased in the past year due to many campaigns to raise their awareness.

“Nowadays we focus our campaign on three points: firstly, building rural toilets; secondly, washing hands with soap after going to the toilet and eating food; and finally, drinking safe water and keeping their water at home safely,” Chea Samnang, director of the Ministry of Rural Development’s rural sanitation department, told VOA Khmer by phone Thursday.

Diarrhea is still the main disease caused by a lack of sanitation and clean water and is a leading cause of death in Cambodia and other countries around the world.

So said poor health, disease and the loss of tourists who won’t come to a country without proper sanitation cost Cambodia $488 million a year.

“With this information the government could truly understand that in addition to providing sanitation for every household and every citizen of Cambodia…they could not afford not to provide that sanitation, because without sanitation Cambodia was losing seven percent of GDP,” So told VOA Khmer.

Experts estimate that the lack of sanitation and clean water kills some 1.5 million children every year worldwide, while even small investments to counter the problem can save lives.

Participation of Samakum Kaksekor Samaki Mean Chey in CIP development process

By: Yi Kimthan

Samakum Kaksekor Samaki Mean Chey, known in English as the “Farmer Solidarity Community”, was found on 3rd February 2006. The CBO is located in Angkor Chey I Village, Damnak Kantout Khang Tboung commune, Kampong Trach district, Kampot province. There are 5 groups under the umbrella of the farmer association (FA) with 103 members, 60 of whom are women. To date, the association has been able to mobilize the capital through collective savings up to 22 million riel for providing loans to their members.

The main activities of CBO are:
• collective Saving for Self-Reliance (SfR) ;
• promoting agro-ecological innovations and conducting action research
• promoting natural resource management;
• present a voice to commune council in order to articulate the issue of the community in to CDP and CIP;
• promoting community business such as a community shop,
• mutual-help group
• rice bank

Since the establishment till October 2008, the CBOs had been working more on development and dissemination of agriculture innovation and the promotion of collective saving. It means that more activities related to income generation were carried out by CBOsb They also did not work closely with commune councils as well as they did not understand what is CIP? Why they needed to attend in the CIP development processes.

The CBO has cooperated and registered with CSPPM since October 2008. During the cooperation with the project, the project staff regularly provides training, coaching and follow up advice to build the capacity of CBOs to enable them to raise a voice to CC, attending on natural resource management and promoting community business. So far, the training topic raised by the project is shown as follows:
• How to write proposals and project management;
• CBO management and CBO planning development;
• How to raise a voice to CCs and others;
• Community business concept;
• CIP process and participation.

After cooperation with the CSPPM, Samakum Kaksekor Samaki Mean Chey and Damnak Kantout and commune councilors have improved the communication and cooperation, especially in the CIP development process. On the other hand, the CBOs are being recognized by commune councils and villagers as the actors that are playing very important roles in community development. By this recognition, there are more villagers interested to join. Thus, the number of members increased from 72 to 103. Additionally, the CBO also facilitated to form the youth group.
On the other hand, CBO executives also attended the monthly meeting of commune council to lean about CIP process as well as to present on CBO progress and problems within the community During the monthly meeting of commune council, CCs shares on commune’s activities,achievement and their work plan as well as on C/S fund and NRM-L fund that government has allocated to their commune.

By attending in monthly meeting of commune councils, Mrs Chey Siyath, leader of CBO said that Damnak Kantout Khang Tboung Commune has annual budget around 104 million riel with including 66 million riel is allocated from C/S fund, 24 million riel is allocated from NRM-L fundand the rest come from community contribution, birth and wedding registration etc. The NRM-L fund that available at the commune is only 21.6 million reil as 10% of total budget was allocated to provincial administration.
Furthermore, during the step 1 of CIP process, meeting at commune level and village level, Mrs chey Siyath raised some community proposal such as water gate construction for irrigation (vegetables, early rice planting…), improvement of natural resource management as the natural resource, improvement of the marketing for community products such as rice, potatoes, taro, peanuts etc. On the other hand, Miss Pech Sineth, the representative of youth group, raised some problems of youth such as school abandonment , migration, and non- attendance in both family and community work; she also suggested CCs to consider some alternatives such as providing vocational training, supporting both funds and ideas to youth group for education and occupation. As the result, issues raised were put into table 1.1.

In short, we observed that voice of this CBO is increasing noticeably. Based on the indicator of CSPPM, “voice” has three dimensions: Voice Awareness, CSO Structure and Voice Action. So all activities done by the CBOs can meet to the indicators of CSPPM such as:
• Awareness of CIP development process, awareness of the existence and amount of earmarked NRM funds and awareness of how to access those funds;
• Active participation in CIP Process, through the raising of issues and real needs of community through attending in at various CIP meetings at commune and village level and monthly meeting;
• Level of formality of structure and size, especially the size of membership and percent of female membership.
By interviewing, Mr Chheum Neth, chief of Damnak Kantout Khang Tboung commune council, “This year I am very happy because I observe that the representative of CBO attended in meeting at commune both monthly meeting and CIP process. Based on the meeting, I could know and learn a lot from CBO such as progress and workplan and had a chance to present them on the activities and plan of commune council as well. On the other hand, I have strong cooperation and communication with CBO executive members to ensure a good information flow between commune council and community”, Mr Chheum Neth said.

Since the cooperation with CSPPM, CBO impressed that they are gaining more knowledge and have a better understanding on how to develop a proposal, why CBOs need to develop work plan, and what is the importance of participation on CIP development processes. They are also more aware of the natural resource advantages. The cooperation and communication with CCs has increased remarkably and CCs also have strong support to CBOs.