3 Weeks to go!

So this is my penultimate blog on life as a VSO volunteer – I can’t believe how quickly a year has flown by.

CDA has been a big challenge for me but I believe we have made some steps forward. I have not been able to push through all the changes that I’d imagined upon my arrival but in retrospect I don’t think that it was ever truly realistic that I could turn around so many ingrained attitudes, particularly working in a language that I remain very limited in.

However it is very pleasing to see some of the things that CDA are now doing (including our new projects) and the ability to talk about new concepts including a business based approach, sustainable resource use and an integrated development approach to CF areas (albeit not in that language!).

I will do a bit of an overall review when I finish next month when I can take a step back and think about the last year. One thing I’m sure of however is that if I carry on working for NGO’s post Cambodia I will definitely be in a better position to work with local NGO’s and my experience of implementing projects and seeing things from a local NGO perspective has been invaluable as I believe the relationship could be better in so many cases – that’s not just from CDAs perspective but a lot of other NGO’s we work/ socialise with.

So I have not really spoken about the activities of CDA for a while and so let me just briefly go over a few things that we have been up to recently.

Odds and Ends:

I have been helping put together a longer term proposal to set up a child sponsorship program with Action Aid – I have not been heavily involved in this but Action Aid have sent about three different formats through requesting different types of data, plans etc. Bo has looked like a bear with a sore head whenever they have been in touch so I have had to try and explain the increasing complicated formats and questions.

We have started a new research project under our NPA funding in to the impact of Economic Land Concessions on local peoples livelihoods. This is a really big issue and one of the countries “hot topics” and whilst I helped with the initial proposal I have also been advising on the best techniques to use.

We have also started a new project with Forum Syd – between this project and the NPA project the loss of Oxfam money next year will not be as disastrous as had been predicted when I first got here! I have facilitated the design of this project and I am happy with the training and help that Forum Syd atre giving to CDA – I am very hopeful for the partnership (although they do keep taking the staff I want to work with away!!) We have also been working with ZOA and some of the other NGOs on an EC Land Management proposal.

Business Training

As I’ve mentioned before one of the main thing that I have been trying to work with CDA is to try and encourage some more entrepreneurship in our CF communities (of course in an environmentally responsible and sustainable way).

We have managed to convince Oxfam to release some more funds (that’s about the equivalent of getting blood from a stone) to help kickstart some groups as we have only being working with individuals so far. To help the communities we are currently setting up “small business groups” (the name is catchier in Khmer) and we plan to give small business training to these groups. This intervention by Oxfam has actually confused things slightly and I have worked hard to stop CDA just blindly accepting what Oxfam say and to negotiate activities so that they fit with our work and strategic plan – otherwise what’s the point in having them!!??

This issue again partly stems from wider issues. Cambodias recent history is tragic at best and people are used to authoritarian rule – civil society has a long way to go and people are very wary of chains of command. Therefore as a little NGO I have had to show CDA how to try and persuasively put together a case if a donor is being unreasonable – I would like to add I have not always been successful.

Before CDA can do this however I have to train the CDA staff to be able to do this!
We are half way through this process I have done the training but we need to do some follow up next week to ensure it’s made it to the long term memory and then I will go and observe/ be on hand to help the staff for their first forays in to the training. I really enjoy giving training and I make sure my training sessions are very VSO always participatory as I believe people are always going to remember things when they have participated in coming up with the ideas themselves. Unfortunately this does not always sit with how Cambodians expect to be “taught” – all the teaching at school and university is parrot form and I often think that the staff would be happier if I sat them down and put on a boring powerpoint with lots of long words and a “you will go to the village and lecture them on this”.

One of the staff was particularly hard work – the problem is he will be responsible for the most villages and I think I won him over in the end. His bullishness and frequency of complaints and trying to turn everything in to a joke stems from the fact that he is insecure and doesn’t think that he can do whatever I say – however simple I make it.

The truth is you can’t teach someone to run a business (even a small one) in three days but in taking them through the process of planning a business and showing them some simple record keeping I think the business will be given a greater chance of success – it’s a shame I wont be here to watch the businesses grow but I just have to hope that the training that I have done will stand the CDA staff in good stead. With all the work that I have done with them I at least know that they appreciate the basics.

Whatever I do in the future I doubt I will be directly giving business training to communities but it is a good learning experience to be involved in this. I deeply believe in the importance of business and livelihood improvement as a way of ensuring sustainable resource use. However as with anything the practicalities of the implementation of this are difficult. It is reassuring that a year after battling with these I still believe in what I am doing as strongly as ever.

I guess that is why I am actually going to be staying in Cambodia for another 6 months – however this will not be with VSO. More about that next time...