Monday, November 6, 2006

Kep Updates (September-October period)

After the first project meeting in Phnom Penh, staff from both Pilot sites went back to their respective areas to continue what had been started. In Kep Pilot, the following activities were done:

1. Commune meetings
Three commune meetings were conducted in Damnak Chang’eur district as a follow up to the district assembly held last October 3. Permission to conduct the commune meetings was granted by district Governor Tep Yuthy. The commune meeting dates were originally scheduled for the first week of October, but were postponed twice due to the national electoral registration and its subsequent extension. The commune meetings were later held on the last week of October, on successive dates.

One of the things emphasized during the workshop was the creation of an interim committee that will work closely with the iREACH project staff for most of the project activities. The villagers however need more meetings to explain further the role of the committee as well as its tasks and responsibilities, both to the community and the project. The villagers agree to hold meetings again to discuss these matters. The report on the commune workshop will be completed soon.

2. Computer Orientation
One offshoot of the commune meeting was a computer orientation meeting requested by the villagers of Angkaol commune. Villagers attended the two hour meeting and showed interest in using the computers. The vice commune chief urged the project staff to take it slowly when explaining technology to his village-mates because of the apparent low-level of understanding. Also, he stressed that most villagers will be more enticed/interested to participate when they are able to see the equipment right in their villages.

3. Baseline survey
After the first project meeting, the research team sat down with the advisors to revise the existing PRA guidelines and baseline questionnaire. Further discussion and revisions of the questionnaire were made through an e-meeting. After the baseline questionnaire was finalized and approved by the advisors, the baseline survey was conducted in Kep on November 2-8. Eight student volunteers from the Maharishi Vedic University in Prey Veng province were sent to Kep as volunteer survey-enumerators. Prior to this, the students received training from Kamchai Mear Pilot Coordinator and Research Coordinator. A total of 45 respondents from the communes of Pong Tuek, Angkaol and Ou Krasar were interviewed using a 10-page questionnaire over the span of three days. Encoding was done in a computer shop in Kampot province. Currently, the data gathered is being analysed with the help of Kamchai Mear Pilot Coordinator and Researcher as the data collected is in Khmer language. Mr. Pin Vannaro, the Team Leader in Kamchai Mear, suggested having training on SPSS for the staff. SPSS is a computer software program used for analysing data. Mr. Vannaro will write a letter-proposal to the Project Manager about the SPSS training.

4. CSD Field visit in Damnak Chang’eur
Two weeks after the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Commerce and the Center for Social Development (CSD), CSD staff paid a visit to Damnak Chang’eur district. Ms. Seng Theary, the Executive Director of CSD, was joined by her IT staff member Hay Chanthan. They were briefed on the situation in Damnak Chang’eur and after that had an ocular inspection of the target area. During this time, CSD identified potential locations for the internet/computer hubs. The field visit included a meeting with the district Governor. Coincidentally, the group met Brian Unger, iREACH advisor, who was in Kep at that time. Brian decided to join the meeting with the district Governor as well

5. PRA Activity
The PRA guidelines were approved in the last week of November. A PRA testing was done in Kamchai Mear. We reported the result of the PRA testing to Cel and Pam through another e-meeting and together we revised some aspects of the guidelines. The gender component was added only at the last minute as we did not receive the document on time. The PRA activity in Kep was originally scheduled to be done right after the PRA in Kamchai Mear pilot area. However, CSD decided to temporarily halt the activities in Kep. CSD opted to recruit the entire project staff first before proceeding with the activities.

6. Staff recruitment (CSD)
The radio manager, Mr. Hak Sokleap, has been hired and is set to report to work in January 2007. The pilot project coordinator was interviewed late in December and hired in the same period. Mr. Kim Dara, the newly-hired pilot coordinator, will, however, report to work in February, 2007. Other positions, such as Kep Research Coordinator, Local Content Developers and Technician will be filled in later. The Research Manager, on the other hand, decided to go back to Phnom Penh as there are no local activities to be done in Kep at the moment.

7. Site survey with Gateway and Network Solutions
Mr. Huor invited the engineers/technicians from both companies for a site visit to Damnak Chang’eur. Ms. Seng Theary and Mr. Im Sophea of CSD were there too, along with the new iREACH project staff – Mr. Hak Sokleap and Mr. Kim Dara. The group visited the potential sites identified by CSD in its earlier visit. The site visit was aimed for them to study the physical surroundings of the potential sites, assess possible difficulties, etc., and come up with a proposal tailored to our needs.

8. Others – DDD Research
Partial results from the Digital Data Divide’s research were sent to iREACH one month ago. However, we had difficulty in understanding the results, so we requested the research team leader Mr. Men Savornd for clarification. I read through the research report, which is written in English, and its meaning is very unclear. In the previous report that we sent to IDRC, what I wrote there was my interpretation of the original paragraph’s meaning and may or may not represent the intentions of the original author.

This report was cross-posted at the Basecamp so that advisors and other project staff would be able to give feedback on it.

Looking back, I couldn't believe it myself that I was able to accomplish all of these with only myself and Rob as my moto-dop driver in the target area. I realized that my limited stock of Khmer language was enough to tide me over while I am in the community! I noticed that my physical appearance, being similar to the Khmers, made it easier for me to enter the community, talk to the villagers and eventually earn their trust. Although at times I get frustrated at some point, and the frustration is largely due to my inability to understand words that are new to me. Now if only there is a better way to improve my vocabulary...