Exposure visit of Cambodian Red Cross

An exposure visit was organized with the participation of 23 staff of Cambodian Red Cross on 28 October 2008. The visit was taken place in Tramkak district, Takeo province in the target area of CEDAC's project, called "Avian Influenza Behavior Change).

3 farmers were visited separately in term of ecological chicken raising, understanding on avian influenza, and chickne producer group and marketing. During the visit, the participants have discussed and shared the practical experience among each other and many questions were raised.

Field Monitoring by Mr. Nop Sotheara, programme officer of USAID

August 07, 2008, Mr. Nop Sotheara, program officer of USAID visited 4 farmers in 2 villages, Kangan Pong and Romdeng village of Spean Thnot commune, Chi Kreng district, Siem Reap Province. The hosted visit was taken place at the target villages of AIBC3 (Avian Influenza Behavior Change Project), Mr. Kin Mengse, program officer of CEDAC who is the project coordinator of AIBC accompanied him for the field visit. The purpose of the visit is to (1) monitor farmers’ understanding and practice on the messages of avian influenza, (2) Check the progress of farmers’ practice on the technique of ecological chicken raising (ECR).

Based on the result of the visit, we can conclude that farmers have practiced well the techniques of ECR such as “build up the fence for chicken, provide mix feed, separate healthy chicken and sick chicken, clean to ensure good sanitation inside the chicken fence and chicken house, use herbal plant to soak within water for chicken, make compost for chicken to scratch, etc”. However, farmers need to try more effort in order to increase the chicken production so that they can increase more income for the family, the alternative of setting up chicken producer group should be conducted among farmers in these new target villages.

Meeting of AIBC3 working group

I would like to brief you the internal meeting of AIBC3 working group that was held on June 06, 2008 at CEDAC office in Phnom Penh.The main meeting’s agenda is indicated as follows: -Sharing attractive information and activity and result of the project -Summing up the progress of chicken producer group -Preparing format for data collection on the project’s impact -Training on main poultry diseases in Cambodia -Providing impression and making appointment for next meeting. Based on the result of the meeting, we could know that during May 2008, the project’s staff have done some activities as follows:

-10 commune workshops were organized with 123 commune council members and village chief, among them 21 are women.
-4 district workshops with representatives of chicken producer groups were organized with 311 participants, 73 women.
-15 village meetings were organized in order to set up chicken producer group, 189 participants participated in the meeting
-30 training sessions for village promoters were organized with 483 VPs (149 women) Particularly, up to now, the number of chicken producer group has increased up to 751groups (9294 group members). It is a success rate that the project’s donor may well satisfy because the project expectation is only 500 chicken producer group if refer to the project document.

It seems to be that the project has succeeded in forming up chicken producer group. It is apart of the project’s success because number of chicken producer group is one among the main project’s outputs. Additionally, we can conclude that the participants understand more and more about the main poultry diseases especially we have learned about the basis and how to prevent chicken from disease, for example the definition of disease, source of diseases come from, how to prevent it, etc.

The meeting provided us the basic idea and guideline for organizing group training on poultry disease to village promoters and other beneficiary farmers. With the understanding on lesson of disease, it stimulated us to take action on prevention method rather than cure or treatment. Therefore, if farmers would like to get a good result, they actually need to improve the prevention method.

Additionally, meanwhile the meeting, we could see the progress of number of chicken producer group especially the situation of collective selling that is likely not so progressing well due to shortage of negotiation skill and marketing strategy with middlemen. Ultimately, all of us have agreed to collect data of project’s impact based on the distributed form and the result will be given back on 09 July 2009 during the training on interpersonal skill. The result of this study will be helpful to determine the project’s impact both quantitative and qualitative information.

Meeting with AED coordinator

On Monday 19, 2008 I and Mr. Kin Mengse met Mrs. Cecile Lantican (Phd) at the office of AED Phnom Penh, she a new AI-BCC Country Coordinator for Academy for Educational Development in Cambodia. Generally, we met and talked about the progress of AIBC3, where we are if compare to the project’s objective. So, each of the project’s output in the project document was reviewed one by one.

After discussion on those points, we have talked about the financial report of the project, based on the information from Cecile, she told us the fiscal year of USAID as it is based on the system of USA calendar, it will be conducted around September or October so she requested us to complete the activity by August 2008 and the financial report need to be done as fast as possible so that she has enough time for the preparation to USAID.

In addition to the project’s impact, she prefers to go with us, on May 26, to observe the training session that our staff will organize in the field and she also plan to meet several good farmers to see the progress of innovation practice, ECR. We plan to bring her to Takeo province. Furthermore, AED planed to provide our staff and FAO’s staff the training on the inter-personal skill as Mrs. Berengere DeNegri (the previous AED country coordinator) used to discuss with us about that. They suggest us to select a few master trainers among our all field trainers to receive the training that can be possibly organized between 1-7 July and the training for whole staff will be held on 8-9 July.

I am wondering whether AIBC4 can be implemented or not meanwhile AED seems to have no budget to cover for the next phase. According to the result of our discussion, we see that we are working well on the previous target provinces (in phase 1 and phase 2), many activities were done, but in case of new target provinces, we have approximately have achieved around 20-30% as we have just completed the commune workshop, selection of village promoter, provide training to village promoter on AI, and some VPs are now organizing the training to villagers. Among the whole new VPs, some of them are not operating. Afterward, it is better to conduct the training on poultry disease and its prevention in June and there will be an end-evaluation at the end of the project.

Field Visit by Dr. Cecile, AED coordinator

On 26 May 2008, there was a field visit from Dr. Cecile Lantican, AI-BCC Country Coordinator for Academy for Educational Development (AED) in Cambodia, the field visit was done in Tramkak district, Takeo province. Since November 15, 2007, CEDAC has been implementing the third phase of the project, namely “Avian Influenza Behavior Change” under sub-contract from AED, the project funded by USAID. The purpose of the visit was to see the progress of project in term of the behavior change of villagers after receiving the training on AI messages by the project. Another purpose of the visit was to see the technique of ecological chicken raising (ECR) and its impact to the family’s livelihood.

During the visit, she had observed one-group training that was organized for the representatives of chicken producer group at the district level, after that she met and interviewed with 3 farmers in 2 villages, Trapaing Ruon and Prey Chhnuol villages. On 26 May 2008, there was a field visit from Dr. Cecile Lantican, AI-BCC Country Coordinator for Academy for Educational Development (AED) in Cambodia, the field visit was done in Tramkak district, Takeo province. Since November 15, 2007, CEDAC has been implementing the third phase of the project, namely “Avian Influenza Behavior Change” under sub-contract from AED, the project funded by USAID. The purpose of the visit was to see the progress of project in term of the behavior change of villagers after receiving the training on AI messages by the project. Another purpose of the visit was to see the technique of ecological chicken raising (ECR) and its impact to the family’s livelihood.

During the visit, she had observed one-group training that was organized for the representatives of chicken producer group at the district level, after that she met and interviewed with 3 farmers in 2 villages, Trapaing Ruon and Prey Chhnuol villages. As the result, villagers understand well about the symptoms and prevention method of AI disease and the ECR technique is appropriate to farmers and it enables them to generate much income for the family.

Organizing training for village promoter, Kandal Stung district

On 22-23 May, 2008 I have organized 2 separated group trainings for the village promoters in Kandal Stung district, Kandal province. Totally, 36 VPs have attended in the trainings. For the training at this time, we focused on the technique of ecological chicken raising (ECR). It was to note that VPs were interested to learn about ECR as they actually need it for improving their chicken raising technique. According to the meeting, we could know that most of VPs have not organized village meeting with the villager, it can be estimated that around 30% of total VPs in Kandal Stung have organized the training on AI (Avian Influenza) to the villagers.

Unfortunately, most of VPs are working only in their own village, so it means that only 38 villages are working in term of the project implementation. It is remarks that there are totally 135 target villages in Kandal Stung district. Additionally, meanwhile it is the beginning of rainy season so that VPs are difficult to making appointment with villagers, they go to the field for rice cultivation. At the end of the meeting, we also have developed the action plan with all of VPs, some VPs who have already organized the training on the topic of AI will train to their villagers on the second topic, ECR, but VPs who have not yet organized the training on AI, they actually will organize on this first topic for June 2008.

Field monitoring to Battambang province

From 12-15 May 2008, I and Mr. Kin Mengse went to Battambang province to check whether village promoters are working well or they are not on the role. In case of Battambang province, we have not been there for 2 months since the first meetings on the introductory workshops were organized among the commune council members and village chief. It is to note that the village promoters were not selected as we lack of follow up activity with the commune chief and other relevant people. I think that CFA (Community Field Assistant) should be selected to help in running the project as we have no any staff working there.

If we have CFA, we will be able to close ourselves to the community people and local authority so that the information flow among each other will be enhanced to ensure good dissemination of AI message as well as the technique of ecological chicken raising. Anyway, we have only 4 months later to train the community people on 3 topics differently such as the message of avian influenza, ecological chicken raising, and poultry disease and its prevention method. Therefore, the we actually need to work hard in this area, otherwise we could not accomplish our expectation as the project’s plan.

Moreover, we have distributed some learning materials relating to Avian Influenza to the commune chief and other local stakeholders, such as sticker, calendar and poster. Hopefully, as many as people could get the learning materials from the commune chief and village chief so that they are aware of this issue and pay more attention to AI infection. Additionally, from 26-30 May, we plan to visit Siem Reap province, we will be able to see the progress of our project in Siem Reap province.

Internal meeting of AIBC

On May 09, 2008 the monthly chicken working group meeting or AIBC team meeting was organized at CEDAC Phnom Penh with the participation of 12 staff from different projects in different target areas. The main agenda of the meeting is to discuss on:

- Sharing attractive information from the field
- Sharing the progress of the project
- Summing up the progress of chicken producer groups
- Reviewing the chicken marketing strategy, management structure of slaughter house, calculation method of production cost (cost of goods sold)
- Impression and Conclusion from the participants

As the result, we could know general progress of chicken producer group, for example how many chicken producer groups were already formed so far and how many groups among the total groups are functioning well in term of collective selling and other business activities. Additionally, it is to note that most of the relevant projects to AIBC3 were organizing the training on the technique of ecological chicken raising to the community people, therefore we can say that we are moving on the second round of the project’s training topics.