Kampot

UNESCO IN CAMBODIA

CONFLICT PREVENTION & RESOLUTION CAMBODIA

EDUCATION FOR PEACE & DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

KOH SLA, KAMPOT

HALF YEARLY REPORT JANUARY-JUNE

2004

JUNE 2004 Krishna K.C. and Project Team

Content Page number Situation in General 2 Brief Background 3 1. Starting Point 3 2. Administrative activities 3 3. Project Activities 6 4. What have we achieved to date? 11 5. Working with Government 11 6. Working with former KR and illiterate people 12 7. Differences between expectations of donors and Implementing partner 12 8. Request & demand of Literacy Facilitators and District Supervisors 13 9. Meetings 13 10. Conclusions and lessons learned 15 11. Concluding picture! 16

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CONFLICT PREVENTION IN CAMBODIA EDUCATION FOR PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

Half-yearly Report June 2004

Situation in General: Unfortunately Cambodia went through a difficult time of turmoil, civil war and people had to go through the trauma of the civil war in the past. Even after more than decades, the legacy of this sad history is still remains in the mind of Cambodians, especially among the former Khmer Rouge population. Koh Sla is one the areas where former Khmer Rouge population reside. As the settlement is relatively new and the populations have a lot of problems, this area is one of the most deprived areas in Cambodia. UNESCO Cambodia Office selected Koh Sla as the project site. Koh Sla is known as one of the biggest former Khmer rouge stronghold in Cambodia. With the funding support of Belgium Government, UNESCO is now implementing a "Conflict Prevention and Resolution through Education - Education for Peace and development" Project in Koh Sla region. This region was the last stronghold that surrendered to the government in late 1997. The project aims to provide educational opportunities and improve the living condition of the villagers in order to prevent the conflicts within family and in the society at large. "Conflict Prevention and Resolution through Education - Education for Peace and development" Project in Koh Sla region covers 18 villages within two communes where most of the former Khmer Rouges reside. This area has been the neglected area where no agencies had been working until recently. Koh Sla covers a huge area physically, mostly was covered by forest until recently.

Some rich people from big cities are attracted to the area due to having opportunities to grave the land and also selling loges. Illegal logging has become the regular phenomena in Koh Sla region. On the other hand, there are many other problems in the area including malaria. Many of the government staff do not even like to travel to this area. During our mid-term assessment, there was a discussion on the problems that the populations are facing; following were the outcome:

High percentage of illiteracy among adults and mal-nutrition among young children are prevalent. Lack of hospital, roads, bridges, school for children, enough food, safe drinking water are of the major problems the population is facing. There are also cases frequently heard of land dispute in these villages. As there is no hospital, many people are suffering from malaria and dysentery and they do not get medicine. It is difficult to travel around during rainy season due to lack of roads. Roads are blocked by the flood and there is lack of bridges to cross over the stream. There are also cases of rape reported in the area.

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Issues like human rights, freedom of expression and democratic process are not getting enough importance yet in the areas.

In addition, domestic violence, gambling and excess drinking are some of the other problems that the general public are facing. As a result, generally, women and children are the victims of the conflict. Brief Background: With the funding support from Belgium Government, UNESCO has been implementing this project in partnership with various partners such as NFE Department, Kampot, Ministry of Education, OPDC - an NGO, Engineering Institute Cambodia, EIC, and Provincial Training Centre, PTC.

Implementation of this project officially started from January 2004. This brief progress report covers a period of first six months. The purpose of the report is to have a record of all activities done during the period, to report to UNESCO office in Cambodia and to share the lessons that we have learned on this project. It will also be useful for donor to read this report.

1. Starting point:

UNESCO office is now well established and the project has started implementing its activities. As usual, starting a new project and setting up an office in the province takes time, efforts, and a certain degree of diplomacy. The following activities were implemented in this respect:

UNESCO Office in Kampot

• Paid a visit to the district, NFE Department and provincial authorities • Visited project site, got to know the project area • Meeting with village/commune authorities, key formal and informal leaders • Established several contacts around Kampot • Have bought necessary furniture, equipments and materials • Set up an office in Kampot to administer the project in Koh Sla areas.

2. Administrative activities: 2.1. Signed several Contracts:

• Signed a contract with Department of NFE in Kampot to implement Literacy activities,

• Signed a second contract with Department of NFE in Kampot to implement ECCE activities,

• Signed a contract with OPDC, NGO to implement culture of peace. • Signed a contract with Engineering Institute Cambodia [EIC] Association to train

community members and to supervise CLC construction

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• Signed a contract with the house owner in Kampot to establish UNESCO Project Office.

• Signed a contract with Provincial Training Centre, PTC, to train people on Sericulture

• Identified local contractor to build CLC together with the CLC construction committee and signed a contract.

2.2. Developed roles and responsibilities: Developed roles and responsibilities of Literacy/ECCE Facilitators, village and commune supervisors and local authorities:

Wrote detailed job description of staff and developed a list of detailed roles and

responsibilities of: • Literacy and ECCE Facilitators, • Village Supervisors, • Village working group, • Commune Supervisors, • District Supervisors and • Provincial Coordinator. • Monks in each pagoda

The roles and responsibilities were discussed and agreed on in a meeting with Provincial Coordinator, District Supervisors and Commune Supervisors and Unesco Project staff. A list of roles has already been distributed to all concerned. It was however found out during the monitoring visits that not all facilitators and participants are aware of it. We will have to redistribute them as we visit them.

Monk's Support to the project: Monks' support and their participation in this project was discussed in a meeting where Monks, Commune Chiefs, Village Chiefs and all supervisors were present. Monks themselves suggested certain roles that they can perform. A paper with detailed roles and responsibilities of Monks are prepared and distributed.

2.3. Plans and Budget revision: Revised the budget for two years, and planned the project activities in details for two years as well. The revised plans and budget was submitted to the donor for their kind consideration.

2.4. Bought equipments, furniture and materials for office: A Car, motorbikes, bicycles,

some tables, chairs, computers, office stationary, camera, scanner etc. have been bought for the office use.

2.5. Informal Kitchen Meetings - Working in team - Several meetings with Staff and both partners: In addition to monthly meeting, the project team meets often while cooking and eating known as Kitchen Meeting where the team briefs each other, shares ideas and feelings and plans for different activities. In addition to monthly scheduled meeting, the team also meets with all partners as and when necessary. Each and every thing is discussed and each activity is planned together in a team, so that everyone knows the detailed activities and the objective of each activity. Similarly, we meet with provincial, district and commune staff on the 5th of every month to discuss the outcome of monitoring visits and develop new monitoring plans for the month.

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In all the meetings, in addition to activity plans, discussions have been focused on the methods and importance of activities and also having regular monitoring of the process and progress. The motorbikes to district and commune supervisors, and bicycles to village supervisors and literacy Facilitators have been distributed 2.6. Finance: Finance reporting has been the integral part of the project and has been done timely and regularly. 2.7. Database system: Most of the data about all our activities are put in the data bank system, and they are readily available. 3. Project activities: Several activities have been going on simultaneously. A brief report is presented as following:

3.1. Programme Launch- 5 days: Five days Programme Launch was organised and introduced the project activities and CLC in details to about 110 local authorities, key formal and informal leaders and villagers from 18 villages. This activity took place from 19 to 23 January at the Koh Sla community Pagoda. 3.2. NFE-Literacy Classes: UNESCO project assisted in selecting the NFE Literacy Facilitators [4th Feb.]:

• Selected for first level Literacy Facilitators 54 • Selected for second level Literacy Facilitators 36 • Selected for ECCE Facilitators 36

Literacy Training and Literacy Classes: 21 days long first level Literacy Facilitators training was completed on 29th Feb. UNESCO participated and gave a lecture during the closing ceremony of the literacy level I training and the literacy classes have started for six months from 15 March 2004.

At present, literacy classes are being conducted.

Monitoring Training to Supervisors:

The Project Team had monitoring trainingto all the supervisors. During the training,the monitoring team discussed the findingsto date to assess the present situation. Thefollowing are the outcome of theirassessment based on their monitoringresults and also from the outcome of themonthly review meeting among all LiteracyFacilitators and all Supervisors at all levels:

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Literacy:

There are 3 literacy classes running ineach village in 18 villages, about 16 to 23participants are attending the classesregularly. All of them were illiterate, butnow they are able to read and write,which encourages facilitators most. Whilemonitoring the literacy classes, some ofthe mothers are learning with their youngchildren on their laps gives you a verygood impression to know how eager theyare in their learning process.

• Participation of the villagers is avillage has contributed their ownfurniture for the participants as wculture, participants, Facilitators cooperative each other. Picture 100.mpg [Pls

• The literacy participants are aw

Mobile Library as well. They will pamaterials. As the Sericulture acparticipants have started planting

3.3. Early Childhood Care and Education

3.4. Mobile library Books from several agencies have besome of them are donations from diffemeeting and inform the villagers abouagriculture, health, human rights, histopeople are busy now as the rainy seato keep the books after the rainy seasto start the mobile library. It will be sta

3.5. Baseline Survey Prepared questionnaire, planned andand village reporting format. Conduc

nother encouraging aspect to mention. Each house and some of the villages have made ell for literacy classes. As usual in Cambodian

and the house owners seem very friendly and . click here for video]

are of Community Learning Center [CLC] and rticipate in CLC and Mobile Library construction-

tivity is planned to take place soon, Literacy mulberry trees in their land and also CLC land.

, ECCE

On the request of project team, 36 ECCE facilitators from 18 villages were selected by commune chiefs in collaboration with NFE department. A 3 weeks training for ECCE Facilitators is now completed and children and parents classes will be started soon. At the moment, they are in a process of identifying the locations for ECCE classes and are preparing a list of participants both children and

en collectedrent agenct mobile libry of Cambson approacon. At preserted in all vill

prepared mted the Surv

. Some of them are bought and ies. The project team organized a rary in which books on folktale, odia, hygiene can be lent. Since hed, they will be making book-selves

nt, Trapeng Kadai village is leading ages after the rainy season.

aterials for Baseline Survey Training ey training for 54 Literacy Facilitators,

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18 village Supervisors, 3 commune Supervisors, prepared a tentative plan for primary data collection by 54 Literacy Facilitators, 18 village Supervisors, Commune Supervisors and to write the survey report.

To some extent, the survey process was monitored and assisted by Unesco staff while doing the survey. NFE Department was supposed to assist as well. However, the first survey finding was not satisfactory enough, so they had to do it again. After repeating the baseline survey one more time, we have now most of the information we need about each family. Baseline Survey report is being prepared. Within a month it should be ready. Some of the data are: Total number of population - 13,142 among which 6237 are female. Total number of households are: 2,690 Total number of children under 6 are: 2,364 among which 972 are girls Total number of school going aged children 6-12 yrs old are: 3,273 and 1,585 are girls. Among 3,273 children, 1,205 have never been to school of which 757 are girls for different reasons but mainly due to long distance for them to walk to reach school everyday. Total number of illiterate people among 13 - 45 age group are 3,911 of which 2,403 are women. Only about 13% population have access to pump water or open well water. Others get drinking water either from pond, river or rain water collection. More than a person per family have been suffering from Malaria and almost the similar number of people have problem of diarrhea. About half of the population go to traditional healers when they get sick or buy medicine from local store by themselves without having checked by a doctor. There is no hospital in the area but there is one health centre for 18 villages. However there are 167 traditional halers that people have access to.

3.6. Six bridges and a school:

Project team facilitated the community in Taken Commune to repair six bridges and a NFE school. There are more requests to do similar activities in other villages as well.

Now and before

3.7. Vocational Training - Sericulture

As a part of the vocational training and income generation activity, Sericulture seems viable and so it is selected together with the people to implement. More than 10,000 mulberry plants are planted by the people. Most of them are reported growing. PTC soon will pick up from this point.

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3.8. Written concept papers, handouts and developed training materials: • Written about 20 topics in Non-Formal Education concepts, and assisted to prepare

materials for literacy Facilitators training.

• Developed the 65 pages booklet on basic management, project design, Monitoring &Evaluation for M & E training.

• Written a brief paper titled "Visualization" which made the donor and UNESCO authorities in Cambodia to reconsider the duration of the project.

• Developed the monitoring form to monitor the literacy classes and other activities.

• Written some Community Development concepts and principles to train staff members as well.

3.9. Community Learning Centre, CLC:

Total of seven CLCs possible sites are selected and will be built in Koh Sla area. However, only two CLCs will be built this year. The general concept of CLC and different types of CLCs have been shared with authorities and the people in the area already. Based on the people's need and choice, a design is prepared. CLC construction committee and EIC, in consultation with UNESCO, has selected a contractor from Koh Sla area [as the project team feels important to select contractor locally]. Each construction committee is elected by community members in each CLC site and a land for CLC site has been given by local authorities, villagers and monks. Some of CLC construction materials will be contributed by villagers, monks, literacy participants.

3.10. Culture of Peace:

OPDC an NGO has been developing materials on Culture of Peace. OPDC has been introducing the topic in each training organised by UNESCO with any of the partners. Material that recently developed on Culture of Peace was pre-tested in the village where the project is in operation. There are a few new ideas came up from the people and those ideas will be incorporated in the final document. OPDC has completed a qualitative research and a report is submitted to UNESCO authorities.

3.11. Construction Training

In cooperation with Unesco, a three month construction training for all 18 people from 18 villages is being conducted by EIC.

3.12. Study Trip to Siem Reap

Project team visited Siem Reap Silk National Training Centre to learn about silk production.

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3.13. Trainings provided and workshops organised:

One of the major focuses of the project is to build capacity of the beneficiaries. The project has provided several training to the beneficiaries and local authorities as following:

• Three weeks long Facilitators NFE level I training was organised for 54 Facilitators by the NFE department in cooperation with UNESCO.

• Baseline Survey Training was organised for the literacy facilitators to collect the information.

• Village workshops: Presentation and discussions were organised in each village to introduce the project and request the community for their active participation in the project.

• Three weeks Early Childhood Care and Education training is completed for 36 facilitators.

• Monitoring and Evaluation training: Planned, prepared and provided training on project panning, management and Monitoring and Evaluation for NFE staff from commune, all 8 districts of Kampot province and two NGO partners [OPDC and NFE staff from Banteay Meanchey].

• A training was organised on Monitoring and Evaluation for 18 Village Supervisors [to monitor literacy classes] facilitated by Commune Supervisors and District Supervisors. Unesco assisted in planning and facilitating the training. Project staff, staff of NFE Department in the province and the District and commune supervisors as well as village supervisors have been monitoring the literacy classes although it was found insufficient monitoring.

• Developed planning and reporting formats, and monitoring form for facilitators, village and commune supervisors.

• On the job training: On the job training to NFE Department staff and partner NGO in planning a project based on community need assessment.

• Culture of Peace: The concept of culture of peace has been introduced by OPDC in all the training organised by the project to date.

• Construction training: EIC has been providing a three month training on construction methods for the villagers.

• Mid-term Assessment: During the monthly review an assessment of the project achievement was done together with all Facilitators, village chiefs, village supervisors, Commune chiefs and commune supervisors. The project is found on the right track. There are small practical problems while implementing a project as expected. Some suggestions were provided for improvement which will be taken seriously. Overall, the project is running as planned without any major problem. Details outcome of the assessment is available if necessary.

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3.14. Non-formal Education for out of school children: While implementing baseline survey, we came to

know that total number of school going aged children 6-12 yrs old are 3,273 and 1,585 are girls. Among 3,273 children, 1,205 have never been to school of which 77 are girls for different reasons but mainly due to long distance for them to walk to reach school everyday. Within the framework of "Education For All", UNESCO has agreed to fund for at least 18 Non-formal primary schools in this area. For which preparation has been done. Some of the villages have built their school as well.

They are waiting for teachers and book!!!

Before

NFE school for out of school children

3.15. Education for All, EFA

"Education for All" event was celebrated on 23rd April in Koh Sla area with participation of about 600 people from all 18 villages where education, peace and development were discussed. It was the first time ever to have such big gathering and procession in this area. It built the confidence of people about the project. This is the event that UNESCO is leading globally around the world.

EFA day Celebration and speeches about the EFA GOALS and impor

tance of education.

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3.16. Traditional Music:

Traditional music training will be started soon after the rainy season. At preset, we are trying to identify traditional music instruments, cost and potential trainers.

3.17. The Visitors:

The project hosted a visit of Head of Education Unit of UNESCO Cambodia. The project also hosted an important visit of delegations from Ministry of Education, Belgium Embassy and Unesco to visit facilitators' training and CLC locations in Koh Sla and Chaisena areas. Advisors from VSO for Basic Education Kampot visited our project on March 16, Two GTZ Advisors visited UNESCO Office in Kampot and an Advisor from GTZ also visited Koh Sla area. Since GTZ is supporting drinking water project in the area, UNESCO is working closely with them to provide water in the areas where necessary.

4. What have we achieved to date? • Rapport with local authorities and the beneficiaries is well built. UNESCO has

already been able to win their trust. This will facilitate to implement the project smoothly.

• Local authorities are well aware of and are supportive to the project.

• The project is well established and people in those 18 villages are well aware of the project activities specially after a discussion programme in each village.

• 126 local facilitators are in place to facilitate literacy level I, II, and ECCE,

• Seven CLC locations have been selected already. Design of CLC is decided by the people themselves. CLC construction committee is selected by the people. Contractor is selected locally to build two CLCs this year.

• ECCE training is over and they are ready to start ECCE classes for children and parents.

• All 54 Literacy Facilitators for level I are trained for three weeks and all of them have started Literacy classes in their respective areas. Total participants in literacy classes approximately are nearly 1,200.

• The donor and Unesco have approved of 2 years as the project duration in principle. Details are being worked out.

• Unesco office in Kampot is well established.

• Literacy participants are already able to read and write while attending the literacy classes

• Unesco now is working with many partners such as NFE Deatment, Kampot, OPDC, EIC, PTC and also informal partnership is built with CLC Contractor and the CLC constructin committee. There are 25 supervisors from NFE Department, district, communes and villages. There are 3 staff working from EIC, there are 3 staff working from PTC and there are couple of staff working from OPDC. Unesco has been coordinating all partners, their staff and supervisors.

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• Community participation: It was very encouraging to see that the villagers have made benches and desks for all participants in one of the classes in Traipengbai village. All others have contributed the space for the literacy classes. Similarly, some of the villages have built NFE school for children and some of them have been making book selves for mobile libraries.

• Slowly democratic values are being introduced and have started to practice.

5. Working with Government: Unesco has been working with NFE Department in Kampot mainly on Literacy and ECCE. The department cooperated to organise EFA week as well. The project is implementing its activities without any major problems except at times, as usual, the government bureaucracy is not supportive enough to implement activities as planned. Our experience tells us that sense of urgency, importance, priorities and sense of responsibilities are some what different in the government bureaucracy in Cambodia [as in other third world countries] compared to UN/IOs. As a result some of the activities have been delayed a couple of times.

6. Working with former Khmer Rouge and illiterate people: The target group of the project is clearly former Khmer Rouge. Most of them are illiterate. It was a problem to find literate people to be trained to be Literacy Facilitators in some of the villages. Therefore the project aims to focus more on education and capacity building than providing materials support. With this aim, the local beneficiaries were trained as Facilitators and also to collect baseline information. Recent monitoring suggests us that there are some chronic problems such as excess drinking and gambling in some of the villages. This has directly affected the literacy classes. Police and local authorities themselves are involved in some cases which makes much harder to solve the problem.

Due to lack of enough capacity and lack of outside support, baseline Survey was not done properly for the first time and it is now done for the second time with better results.

7. Differences between Expectations of donors and implementing partners: Implementing partners' methods of working and practices are very different than the donors would expect to see happening. The following are the realities on the ground which is not easy to believe for donors:

• Literacy Facilitators Selection: Due to lack of enough experience of the Department, the process of selecting facilitators was not good enough, although better methods were suggested. As a result, some illiterate facilitators were selected. They had to be replaced by literate people but it was not done until late. Those new Facilitators could therefore not participate in the training. Those who hardly can read and write themselves will not be able to teach participants well enough. It was not easy to find literate people in most of the villages as well. Given this context, the lesson is one should expect realistically.

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• Literacy Training curriculum: A Very primitive literacy training curriculum was used to train literacy facilitators. New ideas and methods were suggested but they were not easy for the authorities in Kampot to accept. Some handouts were given to use during the training but it was not used. About 15 essential topics such as Community participation, Paulo Freire approach in literacy, problem solving, etc. were not covered in the training. Cambodia needs much better curriculum.

• Village Supervisors: A few village supervisors can not read and write. Almost all of the village supervisors are village chiefs. They have been supervising the literacy facilitators. Since they themselves do not know how to read and write, they are not be able to monitor and record their findings. UNESCO therefore has suggested to have an assistant for them. The project will be monitoring if it is followed by the department.

• Salary for Facilitators and Supervisors: Salary for Facilitators and Supervisors have not paid regularly on time by the department. This has become an issue and hope it will not be repeated again.

• Monitoring is not done as per the plans: Although there is a plan to monitor the literacy classes, it was found out that the none of the Supervisors are following their plans.

8. Request and demand of Literacy Facilitators and District Supervisors • One more motorbike for District Supervisors: Out of three District Supervisors, they

have received two motorbikes. They would like to have one more. However, it seems reasonable to have only two bikes for the district as they all three would not go to the field at the same time.

• Radio set for district to cover the project around Koh Sla area: In order to be able to communicate between district and Koh Sla project area, there has been a request for a Radio set. As the monitoring will be [hopefully] regular, I do not see the big needs if we do not have any resources for this. However, if Belgium Govt. would agree for it, then it is worthwhile to explore the possibility.

During the monthly review workshop, Literacy Facilitators expressed the following ideas:

• It has not been easy to attract participants to come to the literacy classes. Village and Commune Supervisors should be more supportive. Teaching learning materials should be made available without delay. Salary for Facilitators should be given on time. Facility for evening classes would be appreciated. Mobile library should be established as soon as possible. Activities related to cow bank, pig bank, traditional music and silk worm raising should be implemented soon. Would like to participate in training on prevention from violence and land grabbing. There is a need to repair 6 bridges and tin roof for two NFE schools, and UNESCO activities should continue for along time.

9. Meetings As UNESCO is working in Kampot, it was felt necessary to meet some of the potential partners to share experiences and resources if applicable. UNESCO had meeting with

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organisations working in Kampot and Koh Sla areas in order to have possible co-operations in future. We are in contact with relevant authorities such as Provincial Vocational Training Centre to identify different options on vocational training available in Kampot and to get their experience. Some of the important meetings held were the following:

• World Bank Advisor and VSO for basic education in Kampot on March 16

• VSO working in Chhuk on March 30

• PRDO and GTZ, March 17

• CSD, an NGO

• WFP in PP on March 4, wrote a proposal to get food support from them

• NFE department PP, several times and discussed about NFE programme: Adult literacy programme and also NFE for Children

• Meeting with Kampot provincial health department of Kampot, all NGOs and other agencies working in Kampot participated the meeting on May 19, 2004 and also UNESCO was requested to introduce and present its activities in Koh Sla area. As per the request, Unesco made a brief presentation which was of interest for many of them.

• Monthly review meeting with all Facilitators, supervisors was organised on 28th May and 28th June. The review is scheduled for every 28th of the month.

• Monthly regular monitoring meeting was held in 5th June and will be held on 5th of every month.

• Meeting with Dr. Supote to get funds for NFE for children. He has kindly agreed to give 20,000$ for two years.

• Meeting with Ms. Leena about EFA week, decided to do some activities on April 23

• Several meetings were held with EIC before and after the contract signed.

• Several meetings were held with Provincial Training Centre before deciding to work with them on Sericulture

• ECD Department, Ministry of Education and UNICEF on 14th June for ECD Master training.

• UNICEF on 15th June to make tentative schedule for ECD training.

10. Conclusions and lesson learned: Coordinating with all players, monitoring of all activities for the quality assurances, planning each activity in detailed, reporting and administrative/finance related jobs have been the major tasks of the Project. There are no major obstacles in making the project a success although the project implementation has been a bit slow compared to our expectations. It takes longer time when we work with government partner compared to self implementation or working with an NGO partner. Constant monitoring of each activity is very important at the beginning. A certain level of monitoring and strictness [in a diplomatic manner] to assure the quality of activity is

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absolutely necessary. NFE Department should develop a plan to monitor the Village supervisors, commune supervisors and district supervisors. However, it is a conclusion that NFE department Kampot is not fully capable and equipped to depend on. UNESCO therefore need to be more proactive and take a lead in the work.

There is a need to have continues strong coordination with all these partners such as NFE Department Kampot, OPDC, EIC, PTC, CLC construction committee and the constructor regularly.

Hope UNESCO will be able to change this practice among children in Koh Sla!

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