August Update from KCM Pilot

Good morning from KCM,

This is Dimanche again, the Pilot Coordinator for Kamchai Mear. I would like to keep all of you up to date about KCM pilot, as right now, we have some project results to present to you all:

1. Building renovation: The renovation of iREACH HQ building is now 90% complete and we are hoping that we (the staff) will be able to move to the new building this week.



2. Antenna Installation: The internet antenna for the village hubs was installed and today, we are expecting the installation of the antenna for 4 hubs will be completed. Currently, only the Tean Pleung hub is functional with internet signal while the three are waiting for the necessary equipments from Gateway.

3. Community By-Law: the first draft of the community statutes and by-law was already finished weeks before. The presentation-workshop was held last Friday, August 20 with 109 participants coming from the three target communes (88 participants with 25 women, 2 local authorities and MVU students). The workshop was aimed at presenting to the community the statutes and by-laws drafted by the Interim Committee members and to get its feedback and approval. The response of the community was enthusiastic, commenting on various parts and ultimately voted for its approval.

4. Multimedia: The multimedia team were working hard to develop the content for broadcast. This month, the team were researching their topics, interview resource persons and just last week, they were already editing the story for its first pagoda broadcast.

5. Research: The Reserch Coordinator Loek Sothea finished all of his work assignments last Friday. He's going to work for another organization and before leaving, he returned all iREACH things that was given to him and also endorsed to the PC all the documents that he had completed and that are still in draft. We wish him good luck as he take on a new job.

6. The newly-recruited Community Facilitators (CFs) were supposed to be given basic computer and internet training before starting to work with iREACH. However, some of the CFs could not work for us so that means the training will be postponed until we have recruited new CFs.

7. Last week, the KCM management team (I and Mr. Vannaro) met with the Technical Support and accompanied him to the village hubs where he will be working and also to discuss more on his employment details. The Technical Support was interviewed at the central HQ in PP by the Project Manager Mr. Chea Sok Huor, the Research Manager, Kep PC Hak Sokleap, I and the Team Leader of PAN-Cambodia Project. After his interviewed he was contacted to meet with us (Mr. Vannaro and I) for management discussion. He agreed to work with us and he started last August 16.

We also had a meeting between KCM KEP and Central for the preparation for the big September event. During the meeting we discussed which activities do we need to do for the visit and how do we encourage our staff to be more committed to the project to achieve success in the project implementation.

These are all the events that had happened over here in Kamchai Mear... We hope to receive feedback from you all.

With my best regards,
Dimanche