Improvement of Living Conditions and Future Prospects of Cambodian Children in Rural Areas
- Creation of community preschools: the project benefits from activities set up in villages by the Education of Parents and Mothers in Rural Cambodia Program in partnership with the Krousar Yoeung association.
The setting up of Early Childhood informal centres (community preschools) in the provinces was done with the active participation of Village Development Committees (VDC) and parents regardless of their financial difficulties. As the head of one VDC says:
''A community preschool has been recently opened in on our village and I am determined that the educators stay motivated and are paid so that the preschool can stay open. This pushes me to go from door to door to encourage villagers, even the ones who don't have small children to contribute to the educators' wages. They often don't want to make a contribution and say « let the non-governmental organization pay » or « it's not my problem ». But little by little this is changing and people are starting to realize how important education and their contribution are. I am determined that this school remains open and it's my duty to help other villagers become as determined as I am ». |
Increase awareness on the need for elementary education : Aside from workshops to increase parent awareness on the importance of education, various materials are provided to elementary schools to make them more attractive. In 2003, 20 elementary schools thus benefited from library books, sports equipment, pedagogical material and the setting up of a market gardening and tree planting activity .
Creation of mobile and permanent libraries : To encourage the children's participation and make reading more fun, E&D set up an activity that is entirely managed by senior peer educators. In each province, a mobile library, including a television and video equipment that broadcasts various messages on children's rights and health comes to each village 8 times a month.
Adult literacy: In the Prospects project areas, only 15,9 % (Takeo) and 7,1 % (Kampong Speu) of the women have been to secondary school compared to respectively 34 % and 31,4 % of the men.
To meet the strong demand, Prospects participated in the creation of 6 adult literacy classes in partnership with the District Education Office team (DEO) of the Takeo province. E&D was in charge of supplying basic pedagogical material, the VDC made facilities available and the DEO was in charge of training a village educator and supervising activities. We plan to replicate this part of the project in the province of Kampong Speu in the 3 rd stage of the project.
HEALTH:
In rural Cambodia , health is the first expense for families. Improving health conditions has a direct incidence on poverty by reducing medical costs.
The Primary Health Care Project , set up by E&D and funded by the European Union has enabled a significant improvement of Mother and Child health care. Health Centres in the area are able to function better and monthly visits to the villages are made with the help of training and financial and material donations. An entire community health network has been set up with the management committees of health centres, matrons and village health volunteers. A part from providing health care, the network continually educates the adult population by broadcasting messages about health.
| The priority is mother and child preventive health with pre and post delivery consultations, immunization, access to family planning, importance of immediate breastfeeding for at least six months, nutrition, recognition and treatment of diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections in children and social marketing of delivery "kits". An education kit that includes posters, messages, pictures and drawings has been developed. It is distributed to each communitary health network member at the end of the training. A transversal investigation is carried out every 6 months to assess pre-defined indicators. |
The children as health care receivers and message providers are also directly implicated in the activities:
- Children's clubs in school (child to child method) carry out educative sessions based on games for the other children. Some examples of subjects brought up are water, diarrhoea, Dengue, oral hygiene, worms, parasites, iodine deficiency, personal hygiene and children's rights.
Illustration: Prosp - Health (Health education in school - E&D card games)
- Mobile teams go to villages where elementary schools don't have clubs to organize sessions and attract many new children and villagers.
FOOD SECURITY:
The project aims here to diversify daily food intake and generate extra income for families by increasing production.
The strategy, chosen in partnership with the provincial offices and agricultural players that supply the input and human resources, is based on:
• Training production technique trainers(plants, animals, use of natural fertilizers, managing pests), including members of VDCs who are then in charge of training their peers
• Training Village Veterinarian Agents that become financially autonomous
• Implantation of family and school gardens for education in nutrition
• Animal vaccination campaigns
• Setting up model farmyards in poorest families
• Creating community agricultural libraries
• Creating cow banks
• Increasing access to water
• Creating fruit tree nurseries
4,000 families in total in the two provinces participate in food security activities. Today, 2,341 family gardens, 82 model farmyards and 882 fertilizer pits are in activity.
SUPPORTING MICRO-ECONOMIC ACTIVITY
The main income for families living in the areas covered by the project is provided by selling animal and plant products (essentially rice) and running small family businesses. The opportunities for a stable paying job are inexistent in rural areas except in the civil service where wages are insufficient to raise a family.
Rotary funds have been set up following the creation of credit committees inside villages. The poorest families are the main beneficiaries of the credits. The reimbursement of loans which do not exceed 25 USD, is done on a monthly basis with a decreasing interest rate over 6 months. The current reimbursement rate at 6 months is 90%.
However cow banks have also been created as some very poor families are reluctant to take out loans in cash.
CHILD PROTECTION:
- A VDC member is responsible in each village for questions relative to children's rights. These people are in charge of educating their peers through collective informative sessions and are regularly in contact with our Children's Rights animators through twice-monthly meetings, workshops and weekly follow ups.
- Children's clubs managed by peer educators also organize information/education/ communication campaigns on risks for children in rural areas through kits developed by the E&D team and scenes played out by the educators. More than 1,200 sessions for the promotion of Children's Rights were organized in 2003.
- Local administrative authorities (policemen, civil servants from local offices, elementary school teachers) are the third group implicated in the child protection network. They attend training sessions. In 2003, 895 people were trained including 595 women.
The main difficulty encountered by local authorities to enforce the law resides in the weakness of the Cambodian justice system. Corruption and financial arrangements between victims and plaintiffs, encouraged by the police, bypass legal procedures.
PROFESSIONAL TRAINING
Up until 2002, a professional training centre enabled teenagers from poorer families and thus « high risk », to benefit from a free 10-month training in silk weaving. An interest-free 200 USD loan, reimbursable in a year, enables young apprentices to buy a loom and material and start up their own businesses.
Community health program in the Bati and Kong Pisei districts
The wages of a nurse in a health centre are about 10 USD/month
