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Foreword
Dear friends For this year again, it is with a certain emotion but also a touch of apprehension that I had to undertake this difficult task consisting of presenting the work of an entire year in one page. In other words, I had to ask myself how to share with you in the most expressive and economic way the challenges encountered, the hopes and fears we went through and of course the successes and failures experienced in the implementation of our activities for the most disadvantaged people in Cambodia. Not so easy! As I was feeling the anxiety of a blank page, one friend shared with me some thoughts of Jean Vanier, the founder of L'Arche community, and it was exactly what I wanted to share with you who support us, near or far, by actions or thoughts. "We are not called by God to do extraordinary things, but to do ordinary things with extraordinary love. J.Vanier It seems to me that this sentence contains everything we have tried to do over the past year. As expected, we have concentrated our efforts in the fields of education and disability, giving a special place to the little ones, literally and figuratively speaking. In the field of early childhood care and education we have opened new community pre-school classes to offer more children the opportunity to live a happy childhood and to prepare themselves for a better schooling. At the same time we started a new program for people with disabilities. We increased the number of our Community Based Rehabilitation centers in order to give children and youth with intellectual or mental disabilities the dignity they deserve as well as to ensure the respect of their rights and dignity in the society. To accomplish such tasks, we did not need to use extremely expensive equipments or to apply revolutionary techniques. In fact, it is quite the contrary. Most of the time, our most precious resource was the human beings, their presence and their patience. It is not always easy to find men and women of goodwill but also working in a professional manner, eager to know the others, showing a constant attention to individual needs, and most of all capable of giving love. Nevertheless, ultimately and without ignoring the weaknesses of each and every one of us, I can say that New Humanity is really fortunate to have many collaborators with the gift of doing ordinary things with extraordinary love. With the strong hope that you will share with all the staff of New Humanity Cambodia the joy, not to say the pride, at the sight of the work achieved, I would like to reiterate to all of you our sincere and deepest gratitude for the continuous support that each of you, in his or her own way, has brought to our projects.
Sincerely,
Our Vision A society where everyone can receive education and care, according to his/her needs and abilities, and participate to the development in his/her own rural or urban communities. Our Mission The main mission of New Humanity is to promote education in order to contribute to the fight against all forms of poverty and exclusion, affirming the dignity and rights of every human being. With the aim of fulfilling such Mission, NH interventions tend to: Develop and improve education and care services, especially for children and people with disabilities, by working in partnership with local communities. Develop and improve agricultural activities in local communities, with particular attention to ethnic minorities. Our Identity New Humanity Cambodia is an international Catholic NGO headquartered in Milan (Italy). Our organization works for human development through education and care for children, people with disabilities and indigenous people. Since its creation in 1992, New Humanity has focused its work on the development of human capital, providing support to destitute families in rural Cambodia in order to encourage them to value education and health care, establishing programs of basic and non-formal education, implementing community preschools, supporting higher education and strengthening agricultural and life skills. In the same way NH developed basic health education and emergency relief program as well as care and education for people with disability especially for those suffering of mental impairments. Nowadays, New Humanity Cambodia is focusing its activities on the field of education and disability as the two pillars of our organization. However NH also implements other smaller projects such as agriculture and food security or health education and sanitation. Our Working Spirit To accomplish our vision and mission, we are working following a few principles: Situation analysis of the population targeted in order to understand and identified their needs. This analysis at the same time is founded on the information collected by a baseline research.
Encouragement
to enhance community participation, beneficiaries and stakeholders, within all our activities to develop a strong sense of ownership. It is in this spirit that we recruit most of our staffs directly in our projects targeted areas. Consideration of gender mainstreaming, to assure a balanced presence of female among our beneficiaries and staff as well. Consideration of ethnic minorities and indigenous groups, who are among the most destitute populations in Cambodia. Respect of the cultural values, traditions and beliefs of our targeted populations. Consideration of the local knowledge of targeted populations in order to take into account their situated practice. Importance of capacity building for our local staff to ensure quality and efficiency of all our activities.
Our Projects In 2009 New Humanity reaffirmed its desire to reduce its broad spectrum of activities in different areas and to reinforce its capacities in two sectors: education and disability. However, to fulfill our mission, we have implemented 3 different programs during the year. Education & Health Program In this program we have regrouped activities linked to education and health as both sectors are closely linked and beneficiaries are often the same. The first project is related to Early Childhood Care and Education and aims to tackle high rate of dropout and late enrollment in the primary schools of Kompong Chhnang and Mondolkiri provinces. The strategy consists in motivating children and their parents on the importance of early education through implementation of community kindergartens. Inside this project, we have designed a health care component whose main task is to ensure the good health condition and wellbeing of our beneficiaries. Our work is to provide children and mothers with basic health education and health care when needed. The second project is an attempt to upgrade graduated Cambodian students by giving them a chance to obtain a Master Degree at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. This master program, implemented since 2004, focuses on Rural Development and is open to graduated students of Social Sciences and Humanities. The Emergency Relief project is a small component to deal with unforeseen events
mainly related to health, nutrition or housing. Our work is to alleviate emergency cases of people in situation of distress. Our targeted group is our beneficiaries of education but also from disability program as well as other people living in our targeted areas. Disability program This program consists of 3 projects: Community Based Rehabilitation Centers, Advocacy for the rights of people with disabilities, and Prevention of disability. So far the first project has already started its activities, welcoming in our centers people with disabilities on a daily basis. Most of our beneficiaries have some kind of mental or intellectual impairment. We focus our efforts to provide them with care and special education based on individual needs. The other 2 projects related to advocacy and prevention have been delayed due to financial constraints. Agriculture program The goal of this program is to facilitate the availability of food and access of it for the families of destitute farmers in our targeted areas. Our work is essentially to provide them with training on agricultural skills.
kilometers to the north of the capital. Mondolkiri province, on the contrary, is situated faraway from the capital, about 500 kilometers to the North-East of Cambodia. This province is mainly populated by different indigenous groups, with the Phnong being the largest indigenous group in this region.
EDUCATION-HEALTH Basic and Non-Formal Education BNFE Early Childhood Care and Education ECCE Master of Arts in SociologyAnthropology MASA Health Education, Prevention & Emergency Relief HEPER Emergency Relief CEI CEI Fulford PIME-NH EPPAC Private donors Kompong Chhnang province Kompong Chhnang & Mondolkiri province Department of Sociology Royal University of Phnom Penh Kompong Chhnang province 2003 2009
2005 2012
CEI
2004 2010
2006 2009
2009 2010
DISABILITY Care, Advocacy and Prevention for People with Disabilities CAPABILITIES Misereor PIME foundation Cam to me Private donors Kompong Chhnang & Kandal provinces
2009 2011
Our Intervention Areas Currently New Humanity is working in 3 provinces: Kandal, Kompong Chhnang, and Mondolkiri. Our local headquarters is located in Phnom Penh to facilitate the articulation and intervention of our activities. Our main projects are located in Kompong Chhnang and Mondolkiri. In Kandal province we have only one CBR center which is linked with our program for people with disability. Kandal is situated in central Cambodia surrounding the capital city of Phnom Penh while Kompong Chhnang is about 95
AGRICULTURE Mobile Training Center for Agriculture Development MTCAD Kompong Chhnang province
OBOS
2008 2011
Pre-School Classes
Preschool classes are given in the morning from Monday to Friday. The activities focus on: gross motor skills/movement, language and expression, cognitive activities, and activities favorable to sensorial exploration and notions of time and space. There are also activities dealing with notions of hygiene and health. Through these subjects a child will get familiar with basic mathematics, early writing and reading, drawing, hygiene, sports, Khmer culture and socialization. Most of these activities are developed by pedagogical games. During the previous school year (2008/2009), most of the 402 children enrolled in our 15 classes had meaningful progress in the different dimensions accordingly to their age. Certainly these results have become the strongest push factor to continue our program for the next school year.
At the beginning of the school year 2009/2010, our program opened 4 new classes to reach a total of 14 classes in Kompong Chhnang province and 5 in Mondolkiri province, welcoming a total of 518 children. The main reasons of this expansion are the positive results obtained in terms of early childhood education in our targeted areas and the need for developing this part of the education sector which cannot be covered by the government due to lack of resources. It is clear that all these positive figures were achieved largely due to a permanent presence and regular monitoring, time used especially to encourage our preschool teachers and guide them for the right track towards quality service and education. Childrens attendance: This issue remains a challenge for our program. Although our staff is continuously encouraging parents to send their children to school, a high attendance rate is still far to be reached, especially in Mondolkiri province where only 64% of school days are attended by the children (compared to 85% in Kompong Chhnang) People from remote areas like Mondolkiri are in general poorer than those closer to the capital and parents priority is focused on daily food rather than early childhood education. This fact alongside the ignorance of education value reduces the access of children to education. Nutrition and hygiene: Children health and personal hygiene carry the same weight as education. A daily breakfast (rice porridge with meat and vegetables) prepared by the
parents was provided to all children. With the provision of daily breakfast, 71% of the children gained weight while 21% have the same weight. Only 8% lost weight mainly due to sickness. The children's weights were taken once every two months in the province of Kompong Chhnang. This assessment will be implemented in Mondolkiri from 2010 onward.
teaching materials, we organized regular monthly meetings. These meetings are indeed a training tool for teachers who share and interact actively in order to understand more thoroughly the problems and how to resolve them. This strategy has helped to increase our teachers self confidence. At the end of this school year, we found that teachers capacities and quality of work had improved considerably due to the acquisition of some teaching experience during the year and thanks to a good level of practice of what has been learned in the internal and external trainings. It was observed that at the end of the school year they were able to prepare and use appropriate materials and methods for teaching. Appropriate materials and right methods make lessons easier to understand for the children. Furthermore, their attitudes and behavior towards the children changed as they paid more attention to the kids, their needs and feelings. In particular, teachers understood well about the importance of children education at this age. Consequently they tried to, educate, explain and convince the parents to send their children to school during the whole school year.
Sothea is one of our preschool teachers in Svay Kal primary school. She is 27 years old and she completed high school successfully. According to her, she joined us motivated by her love for kids, and especially because she wants all the children of her community to attend school. She comments that at the beginning of her commitment it was hard for her to adjust to this new experience. Before, I felt powerless when the kids didnt listen to me or didnt follow my instructions. I always wanted to cry and at those moments I really thought of resigning from my work because I found it hard to continue and I felt tired. Thanks to Mrs. Soya, the program field officer, I could stand through her advices and encouragement that helped me a lot. Because of Sotheas efforts for childrens education, she obtained excellent results with her pupils, receiving for instance rewarding compliments from primary school teachers. Teachers of primary school shared with me their satisfaction of working with my pupils. Some of them told me that my students are easier to teach than other children I am very proud of them and happy Although she is quite experienced, she also has some problems along the way. I have few students who are not interested in learning new things but distracting the rest of the group. I realized that working with children needs lots of patience and care. In spite of these difficulties, she does not spare her efforts to make her students understand and improve quickly. She is also concerned about the importance of parents involvement; she never gives up calling and explaining to them their crucial role in the education of their children. She finally added that through this experience she has never stopped learning about how to teach kids, as well as how to prepare teaching material and use effective and adapted methods. However, her foremost achievement has been her way to get the attention of children and transforming them in children interested in the discovery an acquisition of new things. Before I didnt know what or how to teach children, take care of them, and catch their attention, but now, after a few years working with children and paying attention to them, I have learned and understood more and better about them and their ways of expressing themselves. Now, I am more confident of myself.
most of the families experienced food shortage. Despite their economic constraints some families provided firewood for cooking and others took turns to help cook breakfast. In some cases parents were eager to help teachers as their assistants.
agreed to contribute 1 kg of rice every month for the preparation of the daily breakfast. However, at the end of the school year only some families could afford to give their contribution. According to our home visits,
Chantha, 29 years old, is a mother of three children. Her second child is now 5 years old and he has joined our pre-school class in Svay Kal primary school. Thanks to the positive experience she had with her first child, she decided to enroll her second child in our preschool class. Her first child was our pupil during the school year 2007/2008 and currently she is studying in second grade at Svay Kal Public School. My first child is attending primary school and she in not afraid to attend her class. I think she got familiar with the school environment while attending pre-school. Besides her results are so positive. My daughter did not have any problem to learn the Khmer alphabet, by contrary she learned faster than other children who did not have experience in pre-school. Her house is located 3 km away from school. Every day her husband takes her children to school by motorcycle and even though he is very busy with his work he is a construction worker he keeps going faithfully. My husband is happy to bring our children to school. He never complaint about it, even if sometimes he is very busy he keeps bringing them regularly to school. With her smiling face, Chantha expressed that she is very satisfied with the progresses of her childs attitude and behavior. Now, my second child can read and write most of the consonants and vowels of the Khmer alphabet, sing and dance as well as drawing and coloring pictures. He also shows respect to older people and he insists in taking his shower and cleaning his teeth much more than before. His habits and quantity of eating has increased as well as his weight, from 13Kg to 17Kg by the end of the year. I am very happy with these improvements, and I am very glad to contribute with rice and participate in all activities organized by the teacher or New Humanity staffs Actually Chantha participates actively in meetings and collaborates regularly preparing breakfast for the kids at school. By attending most of the activities and meetings, she has learned how important education is since early age, and she knows better too how to take care of health and hygiene for herself and the whole family. ... before I was not so careful about my childrens hygiene and education but now it is different. I dont want them to be absent from the class. I also prepare healthy food for them at home because I want my children to be strong. Every time my children come back home, I ask them about their day at school and what they have learned. I also try to help them by explaining to them what they did not understand clearly.
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encourage
96%
the
House hygiene
56% 44%
4%
Thus, our staff organized training sessions in different places with the objective to involve parents and community in general. Sometimes the sessions were conducted within the schools, sometimes at the parents houses or community leaders dwelling. The results of these trainings were measured by pre and post assessments but the foremost importance was the monitoring to verify the level of practice of parents towards their families and teachers towards their pupils.
Children Daily Cle anness
80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Clean hair Clean body Nails cut Clothes was hed Wearing s lippers 14% 14% 7% 17% 9%8% 14% 6%8% 20% 15% 10% 7% 7% 31% 66% 66% 58% 53% 73% Very Often Som etim es Often Rarely
So far this activity has been well appreciated and assumed for the parents of all our beneficiaries who participated in our trainings with an attendance rate of 93%. Most of the topics focused on personal hygiene and house sanitation, importance of mosquito net use, and drinking water access. Regularly children in the school and parents in their houses were
Saveoun and her husband are farmers living in Ang village, Kompong Chhnang province. They have three sons. The third one is 6 years old and he attended NH preschool class in 2009. Currently he is studying in the first Grade. Saveoun was invited to participate in our basic health education training, organized for all our beneficiaries. She never missed our training courses because she realized how important it is to have a good health for the development and growth of her children. I remember having participated in 8 or 9 trainings organized by NH. I tried to participate in all these lessons because I thought that it is very important for me and my family. The most important things I learned were those I never paid attention before, like body hygiene, food hygiene, house hygiene, how to recognize signs of some common diseases and how to prevent them... Saveoun explained that after training she tried to share with her husband and children all what she has learnt during the training. As a result of this dynamic, the attitude and behavior of most members of her family changed considerably from day to day. Indeed, Saveoun and her husband nowadays are paying more attention on their childrens hygiene; helping them to take regular showers, cleaning their bodies with soap and shampoo, cutting their hair and nails. They are also more attentive to the use of mosquito net when sleeping. My children do not get sick as often as before because I care more of their hygiene. I also boil water to drink all the time in order to have safe water for them. They got less mosquito bites at night because we use the mosquito net. I see them healthier than before, therefore I do not need to spend much money for medical expenses...
Scholarship
Students granted with scholarship (151 children) received all the essential learning materials. The fact to have all the materials needed has encouraged children and youngsters to attend school. According to the data collected in 2009, 94% of school days were attended by the scholarships holders and we had a promotion rate of 87% against 83% of non-scholarships holders. However, these positive results would not be so without the cooperation of parents who were very faithful to the majority of meetings organized by our staff. In terms of drop out, the results were also positive with a rate of only 1% against 5% in the targeted schools.
Mobile Library
During 8 months of activities in 2009, our mobile library performed a total of 160 visits in 8 villages, which means 20 times per place. These visits met the expectations of 295 children and youngsters who repeatedly joined the mobile library. A total of 112 adults and elderly joined the activities as well. In average, each child came 14 times to read books available. Since 2009 was the end of this project we decided to donate all the books to a community reading center in Phsar Commune, Boribor district. In this center there were only 450 reading books available, evidently not enough to satisfy the curiosity of its visitors. Now with this contribution we hope that the number of visitors will increase next year.
Libraries in Schools
In 35 targeted schools, the total number of multiple admissions in school libraries reached a total number of 149,741 (female: 74,741), an average of 4,278 per school (maximum: 13,440 and minimum: 1,248). Therefore, the number of admissions with single entry was 18,024 students for the 35 schools, which represents an average of 515 students per school (maximum: 286 and minimum: 52). These figures provide us an average of 8 to 9 visits per student admitted (18,024). The range age of the students was from 6 to 22 years old.
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The scholarship granted to students from Kompong Chhnang and Mondolkiri provinces during these 3 years included: school fees, study materials, food and lodging, health insurance, and transport. To ensure the organization and follow up of the students hostel, NH assigned a staff to live with them. These factors contributed to the achievement of this program. Thus in October 2009, 11 students from School Year 2007/2009 finished their studies, and just after their graduation all of them found a job. Out of 15 students (5 girls), 13 of them have got already a job.
0-149 $ 3
Others 21%
150-249 $ 8
Migration 10%
These field studies reflect somehow the most relevant issues nowadays in Cambodia.
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Emergency Relief
This component aims to aid people in situation of emergency due to their economic disadvantage, especially families without farmland. Our targeted group is mainly the beneficiaries of ECCE and CAPABILITIES program. However, it is also open to other people in the targeted areas. The aid provided consists of referral for sick people, food security, housing, and water access. The spirit of this activity is really to reach out to the poorest among the poor and to give them a hand to cover the essential needs. In 2009 we referred 86 poor sick people to some health facilities to get treatment. A total of 23 vulnerable families were supported, reaching 149 household members. Some families received rice provision to face food shortage while others received powder milk for their malnourished babies; these babies were monitored regularly to watch their progressive improvement. We provided Ceramic Water Purifiers to 30 families without access to drinking water in order to ensure their daily water consumption. Between 1 and 2 houses were repaired or built every month. In the same line, this component also secured clean water for children in the preschools and other key locations where families do not have access to water. To do so the program has helped the construction of wells and donation of pumps, hoping that more children and people in the community could enjoy accessible water location.
Tin, 44 years old, is living in Chak village, Kompong Chhnang province. He is a farmer with 7 children. He works in the rice field but also goes fishing for daily food. His wife collects shellfishes near the river to help her husband. Both can generate an income of approximately 20 dollars per month. Tin got an accident while cutting bamboo; his hand was deeply wounded and then infected. He went to a traditional healer with whom he spent 2 months and money without positive results. Then he decided to go to Cambodian Trust, a NGO located in Kompong Chhnang, where he was referred to a hospital for surgery. Since he was not able to cover the expenses for food and accommodation in the hospital, he went back home and bought some medicine for himself in a local pharmacy. The problem was not resolved but aggravated. Therefore, he decided to go to NH for help. After assessment, the staff sent him to St. Elisabeth Sick Shelter, NH partner in Phnom Penh. The center referred Tin for surgical intervention and then he stayed in St. Elisabeth center while recovering. However, his stay lasted 2 months because of complications. Later on the wound got infected again and then NH sent him back to St. Elisabeth where the doctor decided to take several exams including a complete blood test. Then the analysis revealed Bone Tuberculosis. With a thorough diagnosis he was put under treatment for 6 months after which he was completely cured. During all this hard time, NH supported him and his family. Our staff provided the family with rice regularly, ceramic water purifier for safe drinking water, and school materials for his children. Tin enthusiastically confessed Now I am cured and I am so happy, even if I cannot do the heavy work I feel so grateful. The living condition of Tins family has changed since then. His wife started to attend our basic health training regularly. The impact is currently shown at their small cottage where the level of hygiene has been improved. Thus the family is experiencing less health problems and consequently lesser medical expenses.
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DISABILITY
"Every child, every person needs to know that they are a source of joy; every child, every person, needs to be celebrated. Only when all of our weaknesses are accepted as part of our humanity can our negative, broken self-images be transformed."
Jean Vanier
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What started in 2001 as a small project for people with disabilities in the rural area has now become a solid pillar of New Humanity. After 8 years of work in favor of people with physical and intellectual impairment, our organization decided to build on this experience and to establish a new program called CAPABILITIES (Care, Advocacy and Prevention for People with Disabilities) and originally structured by three components to be developed gradually. The first component included the establishment of Community Based Rehabilitation centers (CBR) located in rural communities accordingly to the rate of prevalence exposed by our preliminary survey in the province of Kompong Chnnang. The second one focuses on inclusive education and disability awareness. However, since 2009 was the beginning of this new program, our activities and funding were
concentrated in the functioning and consolidation of our CBR centers. Activities regarding advocacy started timidly but it is previewed to be developed at large once the results of our research on Daily life of People with Intellectual Impairment in Cambodian Rural Areas - A Case Study in Boribor District, Kompong Chhnang Province will come out next year. The objective of this study is to document the situation of disability in rural Cambodia by providing detailed accounts about the life of people with disabilities and their families. These outcomes will serve us to build up our strategic plan on a concrete basis. The third component is regarding prevention and early detection of disability. This project is planned to start once the other two components will be well structured and running.
Although a lot of efforts are made within our community based centers, the home based care activity is never ignored. Therefore, we have structured a timetable with activities including especially health care, physiotherapy, and counseling for Number of beneficiaries beneficiaries who for one reason or another can not come to the Home Sent to Location CBR centers. So we reach them in TOTAL Based other centers their own houses, where the staff Care NGOs takes the opportunity to raise 1. Popel 14 14 awareness about personal and 2. Chak 12 9 21 house hygiene. Despite the 3. Anhchanh Ruong 8 9 17 limited results obtained in terms 4. Kampong Chhnang 17 10 27 of intellectual progresses, great 5. Kandaok 14 1 2 17 results were observed in terms of Total 65 29 2 96 personal hygiene and social behavior. This year the number of beneficiaries has increased to 96 children and youth with Learning activities different kinds of impairment. However, not all & occupational therapy of them go to the centers. 65 participate in the daily activities while 29 receive home based In 2009 most of the children came regularly to care, and other 2 receive scholarship to attend participate actively in our activities (in average the activities of other centers specialized on we got 95% of attendance rate). Parents and education for deaf and mute. All these children children are motivated to attend the center on receive attention and care from 29 local a regular basis. Thanks to this regularity most employees, who are coming from the of them have experienced improvement in communities surrounding the centers or different dimension accordingly to their neighboring communes, a strategy that not
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capacities. Thus, those kids affected by mild intellectual impairment have improved their skills on early reading and basic mathematics being able to write some Khmer vowels and consonants. They are also able to recognize and count some numbers. However, kids with stronger intellectual impairments are not able to follow up these activities but other occupational therapy. In total we have 55 out of 96 children who are able to follow some basic teaching in Khmer language and numbers. Among these 55 children, 17 are able to read and write while
the other 38 are only able to recognize few letters from the Khmer alphabet and some numbers. From these 17 children, 8 are sponsored by NH to attend public school and 2 others are joining special schools managed by other NGOS. Because the courses offered are only half-day in the public school, 4 children are coming to the CBR centers for the second half of the day while the 4 others are going back home, receiving visits from our staff through the Home Based Care activities.
Chan in 2007
Chan is an 11 year-old boy. When he first came to the centre he suffered serious rickets and tuberculosis. Due to his condition at the beginning, he was not able to walk; his arms and legs were too thin and weak. In the Centre he received a good nutrition care and regular physiotherapy. Chan nowadays can walk without someones help despite the collateral damage he has suffered due to malnutrition. Being in the Centre he learned how to write and read Khmer language and basic mathematics as well. Because of his huge progresses he is attending the public school in Grade 1 now. He is so proud because he is the best student in class for the first month. Indeed he is very cheerful to play with other children and very joyful studying in the
public school. In the morning Chan goes to public school, and in the afternoon he comes to the centre to join us for lunch and then study, and play again the rest of the afternoon. Chan likes to teach Khmer alphabet and numbers to his friends in the Centre. While talking with him we could see joy in his eyes. According to him he feels happy in the centre where he has the opportunity to learn and improve his mobility. I hope that in the future I will be able to become a driver, because I will be able to go wherever I want. His family condition has also changed since he came to the centre. His parents have more times to farm, grow vegetables and look after their other children at home. His mother participates actively in meetings at the CBR center and other activities.
Chan in 2009
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January 2009
60%
49% 49% 44% 44% 44% 38% 33% 49%
50%
40%
29% 27% 20%
30%
20%
18%
16% 13% 9%
10%
2% 0%
4% 2%
4%
2%
2%
0%
0% 0%
0% Autonomous Sit/walk with help Sit/walk without help Can crawl Personal Hygiene
60%
December 2009
49%
50%
38% 31% 31% 33%
40%
36%
31%
30%
27% 22%
20%
13% 9% 2%
11%
9%
11%
10%
0%
2%
0%
0%
0% Autonomous No Capacity 0 - 4%
Thanks to a consistent physiotherapy treatment, in 2009 there has been clear improvements for 29 beneficiaries. They have gradually been gaining more autonomy and then self-confidence, a major psychological improvement. These children are currently able to walk without assistance, a progress that allows them to move from one place to another as they want. On the other hand, there are other 16 beneficiaries who still need to work hard to acquire more independence.
facility we work with to have a thorough health check-up so as to know clearly their health condition. When the results are delivered to us, we explain the situation to the parents and then we make sure that treatment is followed correctly. If the child needs a more specialized follow-up, our staff will be responsible for facilitating the access of this patient to the appropriate health facility. This dynamic is frequently practiced due to the weakness of each child, thats why we try to reinforce their nutrition for faster recovery. Most of our beneficiaries are sent several times a year to treat mild problems. In the case of other beneficiaries whose bad health condition is more severe, there is a closer monitoring due to chronic problems. Unfortunately the results of treatment for severe problems are not always successful, we have experienced in 2009 the lost of 2 children whose condition were indeed extremely severe.
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Our concern for health care reaches also those cases including surgical intervention. In the case of physical disability when one of the limbs is missing, the program provides access to prosthesis or wheelchairs through cooperation with specialized NGOS. In 2009 after a medical evaluation, 10 children benefited of such equipments. These instruments do not cost a large amount of money but are able to change the daily life of the person who can acquire more mobility and autonomy.
Because of low level of educational attainment, most often parents are powerless against the situation of their children. Parents do not know the origin of the disability of their child, and then do not have an understanding how to deal with the characteristic symptoms of a particular physical/mental disability, a situation that puts them into a vulnerable psychological situation too. In the case of parents counseling our staff organizes selfhelp groups meetings on a monthly basis. Such meetings are producing great outcomes. As a matter of fact people do not have problems in interaction. Thanks to this easy communication, parents feel encouraged instructed, and what is even more important, they do not feel alone in this experience. Besides, the counselor has also established a schedule to meet parents individually by following a request from them. These group and individual sessions provide parents with an extremely important orientation about their child and tools for a different approach. Moreover, meetings are intense moments of sharing, a real catharsis in which all their worries and sufferings can be released.
Parents meetings
Without an active participation of parents we cannot assure long term care for our beneficiaries. Parents after all are the first educators and care givers, it is in this sense that parents meetings were organized to encourage and support their involvement in our activities.
Psychological Accompaniment
It is essential, on one hand, that our beneficiaries, children with developmental disability, receive psychological assessment in order for the educators to understand better their situation. On the other hand it is also critical that special needs teachers and parents receive counseling to help them to express their difficulties as well as to find the best possible ways to adapt themselves to the daily obstacles arising from the impairment of our beneficiaries. Our activities regarding counseling is under the responsibility of a Cambodian psychologist who started in 2009 to assess, design, and organize his strategy for the three different groups: People with Disabilities, parents, and special needs teachers. Since the number of these targeted groups is too big for just one person, our psychologist began with the most urgent cases. Thus, at the end of 2009, 20 out of 96 disabled were assessed and are currently under individual psychotherapy. In the case of special needs teachers, 6 out of 17 began to receive counseling. The impact of this accompaniment cannot be measured yet because of its short time; however teachers have started to express their contentment for this kind of specialized support. Not only teachers need to be psychologically accompanying, parents need it even more.
In 2009, this activity focused on the transmission of some basic knowledge about
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issues like the kinds of disabilities, social discrimination, family income, hygiene and health care. Thanks to these meetings, parents have begun to understand better the sphere of disability and its implications. Mothers have learned how to prevent common diseases, improve basic hygiene, and especially how to take care of their children according to his/her
disability. They have also received information about the rights of children with disabilities within a community. The input given encouragement and accompaniment provided to parents - has had an impact on the number and quality of parents involvement, especially in assisting our teachers and preparing food for the children at the centers.
Sora is a 36-years-old mother. She has 3 children. One was born blind and with problems of epilepsy and spasticity. She actively participates in the centre activities from Monday to Friday, cooking, washing childrens clothes, helping the teachers and looking after her own child. She shared with us how much her son has improved with adequate care and physiotherapy. Her child, according to her, is able to turn upside down, move alone, laugh, play, listen and express himself by producing some sounds now. Besides, his weight has increased and his health has improved notably. Sora is very happy with these results. Since she takes the child to our Centre, the medical expenses for her children was reduced because it was covered by NH. Since she is coming regularly to the Centre, she has acquired indirectly some skills on how to take care of a child with disabilities but also how to provide some basic physiotherapy, and prepare nutritious food for a child. Every weekend I help my child to do exercises according to what I have seen in the Centre, and I try to prepare balanced food like rice porridge with vegetables, more or less like in the Centre
Capacity building for the staff
We put a special attention on capacity building for our staff facilitating their participation in workshops and trainings provided by the few organizations working in the sector of disability. This task remains a big challenge for the program because training for care givers in the area of intellectual impairment is practically nonexistent. Most of the process of capacity building is done on the spot, our staff has been learning along the years through sporadic visits of foreign volunteers with some experience in the health sector. Nevertheless in 2009 we counted with the help of a professional physiotherapist, who is coming regularly to Cambodia, to train our staff as well as looking after the disabled. Other forms of capacity building for our staff have been non-regular exposures along with other organizations and partners. Sometimes our staff paid visits to partners and in other occasions our staff is the host for people doing their field practicum. All these non-regular periods of training have meant precious moments for the exchange of experiences and information in the area of physical and mental disability. 2009 has tried formally to establish a network to unite forces with other agencies. It is in this framework that our centers are fully open to welcome visitors and/or organizations interested in the disability sector. In return our staff has received invitations from other organizations to build strong relationships for the development of strategic plans in favor of people with intellectual disability. Our networking group, so far, includes on one hand NGOs, international agencies, and MOSVY (Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation). On the other hand there are some individuals who are interested in our activities and offer their aid. In 2009 we received a total of 66 visitors; most of them came for short visits, but enough to experience a typical day in our centers. Besides, children in the centers are so happy to receive people and share a few hours with them. An affectionate touch, a smile or a gentle word of encouragement makes really the difference for them, who are very receptive to this kind of approach. There are also other kinds of visits, which are professionally framed, these visits are in general longer and the impact reaches directly the special need teachers and later our beneficiaries. These visitors are professionals on the disability sector or physiotherapists, both eager to give their own contribution to our program through their expertise. For the staff these visits are part of on going training that helps them to refresh and strength their commitment.
Networking activities
As the sector of intellectual impairment in Cambodia is not yet sufficiently developed, especially in the rural areas, our program in
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Chanthy is one of our teachers in Popel Centre. She is 24 years old and she completed Grade 12 successfully in Boribor high school. Before working in our centre she was an English teacher in her own village, then she started working with us in February 2009. She was motivated to join us by her love for kids, especially her empathy for children with disability. Since the beginning she was very interested in physiotherapy and how to apply it. She expected to learn about these skills to help not only the children but also her mother and disabled siblings in her village. Although her main interest is physiotherapy she also helps in the centre for other activities like teaching, playing with the kids, supervising hygiene, and cleaning. She affirmed that she has been learning many things in the past year, especially on how to identify the childrens problem, as well as how to assess childrens progresses. Indeed, she has improved her capacities considerably, especially in providing physiotherapy, looking after and teaching the disabled children. Her commitment has obtained outstanding results as one of her students is now able to sit and another one is able to walk without someones help. She is especially proud of one student who is able to join the public school. He is going to the school now because he is able to walk, read, write the Khmer language and calculate numbers. I am so happy for him. Despite her rewarding experiences, she has also to face some problems. Very often I feel frustrated looking at the kids and their limited improvements after the physiotherapy sessions. However, I learned that I cannot expect sudden changes or remarkable improvements in short term I need a lot of patience for teaching children with disability; it is hard to make them pay attention. Although Chanty has experienced tensions and frustrations in her task, she never loses hope. She is really motivated to make her students well understand and improve quickly. Finally Chanty confessed her satisfaction in working with children with disabilities. According to her, she has changed her behavior and attitude: Before I was a quiet person and rather passive, but now I work actively. I became more talkative, and my communication skills allow me to interact more easily with other people
Beneficiaries improvements by kind of impairment
60%
54%
January 2009
49% 46% 47%
50%
40%
37% 35%
37% 34%
36%
30%
29%
28% 23%
20%
18% 14%
10%
2%
6%
3% 0% 1% 0% 0%
0% Health
60%
Vision
57%
Hearing
Speech
Self care
Cognitive skill
Social
Mobility
December 2009
50%
39% 40% 34%33%
40%
30%
20%
29%
28%
30%
30% 28%
30%
23%
20%
11%
18%
10%
7% 3%
6%6%
6% 0% 0%
6%
0% Health No capacity 0 - 4% Vision Hearing Speech Self care Cognitive skill Social Mobility Few capacities 5 - 50% Some capacities 51 - 75% Many capacities 76 - 95% Full capacities 96 - 100%
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while others receive a session of physiotherapy. Thats pretty cool! Of course, we also have some fun time!!
When everybody is in good shape, we go for an outing to meet other people and know new places!!
For those who cannot come to the centers the staff provide home based care
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AGRICULTURE
The world of agriculture, which provides society with the goods it needs for its daily sustenance, is of fundamental importance.
Pope John Paul II, Laborem Exercens (1981)
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Our program in numbers 129 applications were received from different villages (68 in Boribor district and 61 in Tuek Phos district). Conducted baseline survey in 102 villages to understand the situation 102 trainings were delivered 2,102 farmers (1,388 women) and 280 students were reached 3000 booklets on different agricultural topics were printed and distributed to the trainees.
According to the data collected in 2009, we could obtain some figures from 31 former beneficiaries of 2008, to have an idea about the impact of this mobile agriculture training. Just taking the example of poultry rearing, the most requested subject, the Number of Trainings by T opic results seem to be very optimistic for the Fish raising, families and their food security. Thus, all Cattle raising, 7% Poultry raising, 9% the families who received poultry training 43% Pig raising, could generate an average of around 40 18% dollars per family, and income generated to cover other food expenditure. In a case study one of our beneficiaries started her activities with 10 chickens and nowadays she has around 70. Besides, she and her family have been eating eggs and Gardening, sometimes chicken. This family could sell 10% Organic fertilizer & Rice cultivation, about 50 chickens in 2008, generating an pesticide, 6% 7% income of around 163 dollars to ensure their daily food consumption. Currently An important activity of this component is the they are still rearing poultry with the hope to follow up of our beneficiaries to identify their increase the number of chickens in the future. level of practice once the formal training is over. This monitoring is done for the Our model farm, located in Anhchanh Ruong demonstrators as well as for a sample of the commune, was renovated to better fulfill its participants, in order to verify how farmers are mission of being a center for farmers putting into practice all or a part of what they interested in seeing new techniques of have learnt. Consequently they can cope with agriculture. The center is open to the whole food shortage and in some cases even to community but especially for those farmers generate some income for other expenditures. who have received our training. The center
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was upgraded with a solar panel water tower and a new fish pond. This improvement has benefited directly to our pre-school class and Community Based Rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, both located in the same compound of the Model Farm Center. In 2010, the staff in charge is planning to give a strong accent in the farm with poultry rearing using different techniques and species of chicken.
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 60%
95%
68%
10%
Poultry rearing
Pig rearing
Fis h rearing
Cattle rearing
Savon is a 28-year-old farmer with 3 children. She lives in Thneong village, Kompong Chhnang province. Two of her children have participated in NH preschool class, and the first one is currently studying in the third Grade. In 2009, Savon decided to attend poultry rearing training, conducted by our agriculture mobile training. Because of her interest and application, she was selected to implement the small model farm with the support of NH. Before the training, Savon had tried to raise chicken without really good results. According to her, chickens were often sick or died. Chickens stayed around the house eating anything in their path. She never built a henhouse so the chickens were exposed to the rain and heat at all times. This fact increased the possibility of early death. After her experience in agriculture training, Savon changed strategy according to what she has learnt. She built a hen run and a henhouse to keep her chickens inside and protected. In a few months she started to observe the results: My chickens are seldom sick and only a few died ring 2009. I built a henhouse for them and now they are much protected from the heat. Since then, I have got more income by selling my chickens and I hope I will get even more income next year. According to our monitoring visits we could observed that Savons living condition is a little better than before and especially she is very happy to contribute to her family in that way. It makes her feel proud of herself. Although the amount of money obtained is not so big but it helps to cope with some daily expenses and support somehow her childrens schooling. I am very happy with my chicken farm. I can raise them easier than before and I do not take too much time in caring them, thus I have more time to do other chores.
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DISABILITY Program 29 people (Female: 16 & Male: 13) 1 1 1 1 1 1 Program Manager Advisor Program Officer Project Officer Psychologist Physiotherapy Supervisor 1 Field Officer 4 Center Supervisors 17 Special Needs Teachers 1 driver
AGRICULTURE Program 4 people (Male: 4) 1 Program Officer 2 Field Officers 1 Model Farm Supervisor
OP Vanna Psychologist
DIRECTION & ADMINISTRATION 9 people (Female: 1 & Male: 8) 1 1 1 1 1 PIME Representative to NH Director Assistant Director Administrator Finance Officer 1 1 1 1 Secretary & Accountant Volunteer Cook/Cleaner driver
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Budget 2009
Payments by type of expenditures Type of expenditure Human Resources Transport costs Equipment and supplies Services for beneficiaries Other costs (audit, staff training, research, etc.) Provincial offices Communication & Fundraising Administrative costs Total
Communication & Fundraising 0.6% Provincial offices 2.6% Other costs 5.6% Services for beneficiaries 19.8% Administrative costs 2.2% Human Resources 37.1%
Amount in USD 157,504 32,804 103,860 83,781 23,577 10,921 2,568 9,139 424,155
Payments by donor Donors CEI CML-Cam To Me onlus Misereor PIME-NH Fondazione PIME One Body One Spirit (OBOS) MIVA Private donors Fulford Foundation NH Cambodia (including beneficiaries contribution) Total
Fulford Foundation 3% NH Cambodia Private donors 2% MIVA 3% CEI 5% 18%
Amount in USD 78,949 59,042 50,504 57,707 67,574 54,726 19,857 11,281 13,916 10,599 424,155
PIME-NH 14%
Misereor 12%
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PIME (Pontificio Istituto Missioni Estere) Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions
CAM TO ME onlus
Miva Netherland
Center for Information Systems Training Passerelles Numriques Building digital bridges
And also: Hong Kong friends, Amici SAIMA, Association Christian, Parrocchia del S.S. Redentore, CfBT, Clown One Italia, and all other benefactors. 27
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