Takok Chray Village Cambodia

During this quarter, village chief, CBO leaders and villagers with a total of 75 people (35 women) participated in a meeting to divide tasks among their small groups in order to move on practical activities on the demo-farm.

They ploughed 1 ha of the demo-farm land and divided the ploughed land into 6 small plots. In August, they planted different crops including: corn, soya bean, mung bean, sugar cane, and rice seedlings. They have also prepared some land for planting mixed vegetables.

They erected more 400 meters of fencing and repaired 150 meters of the existing fences. CBO leaders and their teams in charge routinely follow up the progress and carry out the activities like weeding and watering the crops.

They have agreed among themselves that they will conduct a village mass gathering among all the involved people (75) at the end of every month to work on the farm and learning about the progress on the practical activities.

Building model animal houses and visitors areas with 3 cabins for visitors

In August 2010, Ockenden staff conducted a meeting with CBO leaders to hold discussions about building of the model animal pens (for pigs, poultry and cows), toilet facilities and visitors’ areas with 3 cabins. The meeting focused on the designs, construction materials and labors. As a result, the meeting agreed on the designs of the facilities. As part of contribution, the community agreed to find all construction woods with a total volume of 9.63 m3 from their community forest areas. Ockenden will hire only a few skilled people to lead the construction activities and villagers will participate in the work. The rest of the materials will be provided by the project.

So far, the CBO leaders collected all construction woods. The construction sub-groups which consist of CBO leaders, villagers and skilled builders are being organized. Other necessary materials (metal materials) are also planned and purchased. The construction work is ready and started right away from the second week of Sept 2010. It takes at least one and a half months to complete this whole work.

The Ockenden project assistant has continued to provide literacy training to children and adults in this village. The information centre has been used as a classroom. Two literacy training classes are conducted on a daily basis from Monday- Friday from 7.30 pm – 9.30 pm. The courses will last for six months; they started on 22nd June 2010 and expected to complete by the end of November 2010. The teaching program for adults follows the non-formal education of the government. The course content consists of 3 textbooks with a series of part 1, 2 and 3 with 75 units. The teaching program for children follows the formal primary education of the government.

One class is for 24 adults (all men) who are in the 15-25 age range. All the participants attended the course regularly and have now completed the 1st to 17th lessons of part 1 of the textbook. The lessons covered: calculations and Khmer language. In addition, basic education on health, environment and basic training on agriculture were also delivered to the participants.

Another class is for 45 children (23 females, 22 males) between the ages of 10 to 18. They have also attended the class regularly. The children learn how to read and write Khmer, basic calculation. The class has reached 13th lessons. All children also participated in some demo farm activities such as building dikes, home gardening, crop planting, village cleaning and sport activities. This course will bridge the children to a formal school.

Note: The United World Schools completed the construction of the primary school building funded by CforC in Takok Chray village but teaching activities have not been started yet. When the school starts functioning, the children will go to this school and begin their full time study. The adults said they will go on their study in the same informal class.

Ockenden staff and CBO leaders conducted monitoring the use of the grants by the beneficiaries from year one (pilot year) in order to learn about the progress of the activities. The findings are the following:

GRANT

In first year, a total of 17 families received a small grant.

13 families used the grant to grow mix crops such as cassava, soybean and rice. By using the grant, each of them cultivated around half a hectare land. So far the crops have grown well. They were expected to harvest rice and soybeans in Nov 2010, and to harvest cassava in Feb 2011.

2 families used the grant for rearing one pig each. So far, one mother pig has 3 piglets and another has 2.

1 family used the grant for chicken rearing. They have been in a good process of rearing 10 chickens.

1 family used the grant to complement on their family’s money to do small trade business (selling grocery) at home.

INFORMATION CENTER

In Takok Chray (size 7m x 10m): During this quarter, CBO leaders carried out some construction activities to upgrade the information centre. In June 2010, the CBO leaders collected 4 m3 of construction wood from the community forestry areas. In August they completed erecting fences (with 94 meters in length) around the centre. They also completed paving concrete to the floor of the centre.

Over the quarter, the information Centre was used as a venue for village meetings and as a literacy class. The local authorities also used the facility for heath education (malaria and dengue fever awareness and prevention) to the villagers.