Project Achievements
This Footprints funded project to provide pre-school teaching materials was part of a much larger program in Cambodia called Empowering Poorest Families. This report gives an overview of the total project achievements in the 2nd half of 2009, specifically highlighting the educational aspects.
Conducted baseline surveys in four new villages
Baseline surveys were conducted in four new target villages in Angkor District. The purpose of the survey is to assess the situation and needs/challenges faced by the families, children and communities. Information in the base line are:
- Basic family information (e.g. age, marital status)
- Family economy/livelihood
- Child related information (e.g. health/nutrition, education, child abuse/protection)
- Housing
- Maternal health
- Sanitation
- Public/private services (e.g. health centre, NGOs, rice mills)
The survey report was completed in the second quarter of FY10 and was shared with concerned stakeholders such as commune council, district council, and provincial department of rural development.
Coordinate with Plan Cambodia Early Childhood Care and
Development (ECCD) project staff to construct community preschools in
four new villages:
The locations for four new preschool were identified and construction
has started.
Coordinate with Plan Cambodia ECCD project staff to establish and
carry out preschool activities in nine villages:
A total of 246 children (143 girls) attended preschools. Plan ECCD
team provided the ECCD program orientation to relevance department at
district, commune, and community level to give them better understanding
of the ECCD project’s implementation process.
Train communities in nine villages on parenting
385 target poorest families (354 women) in nine villages participated in parenting meeting. Main meeting agenda including Children Development, Importance/Value of Education, Toy Making/Materials for Children, and how to enrol children for 2009-2010 school year.
Established and carried out child club in nine villages
32 representatives/leaders (nine girls) of child clubs in the five villages conducted a meeting to develop their own action plan for the training their club members. Specific training topics include malaria, dengue, swine flu preventions and how to live in harmony in a family without violence. Following the action plan, 258 child club member/children (158 girls) in the target villages were oriented by their respective leaders on the selected topics.
78 child club leaders and members (42 girls), one school director (male), one community preschool committee member (woman) and eight community preschool teachers (seven women) participated in a study tour to three ancient Cambodian temples (Angkor Wat, Bayon, and Phimean Akas). The purpose of the tour was to build their awareness and learn about their great Cambodian heritage and understand that the success of their empire was a result of effective leadership, solidarity/unity and hard works. The aim of the tour was to build their self confident/pride about themselves and their communities. After the visits, children shared their knowledge with their families and villagers.
In quarter two a club meeting was conducted where members of nine child clubs attended. A total of 374 children (229 girls) participated in the meeting conducted by 54 child club leaders (32 girls). The meeting topics/agenda were as follows:
- Child rights principles,
- How to develop energizers/warm up games,
- National anthem/songs, and
- Personal hygiene education
One day training was conducted for 54 (32 girls) child club leaders under the supervision of the Education Team of Krousar Yoeung (KrY), Plan’s NGO partner for this project. The training was to educate the leaders on various areas such child rights, life skills, hygiene.
Carried out social centre activities
The following are the events/activities carried out at the social centres that are relevant to the education part of this project:
Child club meeting: Four social centres in villages are being used for child club meetings.
Literacy class: Three social centres are being used for literacy classes with 73 adult students (38 women). The class is operated five days per week. The main session of the class is writing, reading and calculation with mainstreaming of Life Skill Concept including taking care children, understanding of hygiene and sanitation, understanding of HIV/AIDS and its impact, saving, raising animal and growing vegetable.
What next for this project?
The project will continue until July 2011 and will aim to empower some of the poorest families in the district with the skills and the self confidence to access available services and to develop livelihoods activities using the sustainable resources they have at hand.
The Empowering Families priority project will look to find more effective ways of reaching and including the poorest households in community development projects in Cambodia without stigmatizing them or creating jealousy in the community.
Case Studies
These two women have been part of Plan's
Empowering Poorest Families program in 2009:
Meak Un, 38
Meak Un, 38, and her husband Chim Chun, 45, have four children. They lived in the forest to cultivate rice before joining the empowering poorest families project. After receiving counseling they decided to join the project in 2008 and received cooking materials for making cakes to sell and water jar. Un sells cake in her village to feed her children and sends them to school. Un’s husband use to be very violent to her due to frustration of being so poor now, Un advises us “We have hope in life and help each other to earn money, raise pig and chicken, sell cake, plant cassavas and vegetable for consumption and selling. We have no time to make quarrel”, Un said.
Huan May, 49 years old, widow, has seven children
“Before joining the project my life [was] so difficult because I could not earn much income to feed my children. I got support amount [of] 400,000 Riels (US$100) to establish the grocery shop. Since then, I earned about 1 million Riels (US$250) from my business, grow vegetable & cassava for consumption and selling, raise animals and weave mats in the free time for selling. I spent 400,000 Riels for sending five children to school and spent 100,000 Riels to buy pig”
Your donation to this project will help cover costs for
- Equipping and furnish two community pre-schools
- Building play equipment
- Developing culturally relevant teaching materials.
This Footprints funded project is a small part of Plan Australia’s Empowering Poorest Families program in Cambodia (see full details below)
Why is this project needed?
Cambodia is still one of the poorest countries in the world with 36 per cent poverty rate in 2005 and ranks 130 out of 175 in the Human Development Index. Plan in Cambodia is trying to addresses barriers that prevent Cambodian children from reaching their full potential. The key areas are
- Basic education is the primary consideration in development efforts. The lack of access to and quality of basic education will define the future of other development interventions.
- Children have poor health due to inappropriate health related knowledge and behaviors as well as existing dysfunctional health care systems.
- Child participation in society is limited and protection issues particularly trafficking, domestic violence and sexual abuse are major concerns.
- Limited income opportunities have hindered economic growth and have made households vulnerable to economic shock. This has limited the ability of the poor to provide basic needs for the children and participation in development programs.
This project is needed to assist children in Plan target areas to realise their rights to quality education. Early Childhood Care and Development is an opportunity to avoid or reduce developmental problems, thereby bringing lasting benefits to individuals and society.
The early years are crucial in the formation of intelligence, personality and social behavior. Proper care at early age can do much to create an enabling environment that ensures protection and support for more broad-based issues such as children's health, nutrition, psycho-social and cognitive development.
Investments in Early Childhood Development can further help to modify inequalities rooted in poverty as well as social, religious or gender discrimination. As an example we know there is a correlation with Early Childhood Care and Development and the rate of enrollment and completion of secondary school. This is particularly important in Cambodia where net secondary school enrollment for boys is 23 per cent and only 20 per cent for girls . At present, pre-school activities such as kindergarten and other similar institutions aiming for Early Childhood Care and Development is virtually non-existent in Cambodia.
Part of a larger program
Building and equipping community pre-schools, and developing culturally relevant teaching materials for these is part of a larger project called Empowering Poorest Families program. This wider project aims to reach and include the poorest people in three villages in Angkor Thom District.
Poorest households are particularly vulnerable as they have limited resources for meeting unplanned expenses or loss of income resulting from illness in the family, poor harvest or natural disaster. Even relatively minor unexpected events can be a setback from which a family will struggle to recover. They may also have limited involvement in development activities within their communities due to lack of time, low confidence and, sometimes, stigma.
The project, while benefiting the whole community, provides specific support to the poorest families to enable them to grow in confidence; improve their quality of life; progress economically; and participates more fully in their community.
The project approach takes care not to stigmatise or isolate the poorest, or to create jealousy in the community. The project takes a holistic approach to the complex and inter-related challenges faced by the very poor. A strong emphasis will be placed on project learning as a basis for assessing and planning a gradual scale-up to other communities.
The Empowering Poorest Families program aims to create
- Personal empowerment, self-confidence and motivation developed among the very poor in 5 villages
- Community access to health services improved especially for the poorest 300 families in 5 villages
- Children’s development and children’s rights promoted in 5 villages
- Livelihoods of the very poor in 5 villages improved to bring people out of poverty
The outcomes of the whole project are to:
- Set up pre-schools in two villages, support existing pre-schools in three villages and provide training and support for community-based pre-school committees and teachers for these pre-schools.
- Provide counselling on personal empowerment, self-confidence and motivation for 300 families and setting up a village volunteer counsellor network.
- Improve community access to health services by linking 200 families to appropriate health services including pre and post natal services, growth monitoring and immunisation, and providing hygiene, health and nutrition education.
- Support 300 households to improve their livelihoods through training and resources and the provision of ongoing support from government and non-government advisers to 450 families.
- Establish a parenting skills program focusing on child development and child rights.
- Establish social centres for community programs and drop-in support.
- Promote child rights by training community members and leaders.