Second Week Journal of November 2007

Dear colleagues,

How are you? Hope you are all doing well!
First of all I would like to express my apologies for being late in posting here. Here now, is an update on the activities over here in Kamchai Mear Pilot Area. As usual, we welcome your comments or questions. Please read on:

During this week, I spent most of my time attending meetings, supervising the decoration/arrangement of things at the HQ, and facilitating the installation of solar panels in the village hubs. With the recent departure of our Multi-media Coordinator Neth Sovann, I also took over his responsibility of supervising the production of audio materials with the Local Content Developers. This is quite a big challenge on my part, not to mention the other challenge is to find suitable person to take on the Multi-media Coordinator position. This means that we have to advertise again on the paper and do the rounds of interviewing again. We will see how it goes in the coming days.

I was also in Siem Reap over the weekend (Nov 10-12) and stayed at the Sokha Angkor Hotel together with the Project Manager, Research Manager and the Kep Pilot Coordinator. We joined the Resources Branch Management and Regional Controllers Meeting with IDRC's top level directors and the four of us delivered presentations on the iREACH and PAN Projects in Cambodia. Maria Ng and Richard Fuchs were also there and we had a short but very meaningful informal meeting with them. They both talked about how iREACH could be taken into the next level and how the staff should be prepared for the future.

The Project Manager visited us just in time for our weekly meeting on Nov. 15. This time, the Project Manager presided the meeting. He started by asking about the performance of each staff, giving comments and feedback as each took turns in updating him. One of the things that was given emphasis, for the nth time, is the organizational structure of the project. This is to make them staff understand very well the chain of command for smooth working relations as well as to ensure commitment from each staff to deliver quality performance. The Project Manager shared some of his experience in the USA and in Cambodia in order to give an example to us on how important it is to keep good working relationship. It has been a problem on my part since there are some staff who pushes someone else in order to do something when in fact, I was the one that needs to be informed or talked to. This is frustrating on my part as I try my best keep the activities going and the staff relationships smooth-sailing. However, I could not handle this person as he is close to someone higher than me.The Project Manager also asked the project staff to make way in understanding the project infrastructure because all staff need to know and be aware of it. iREACH is considered a failure if the staff don't know how the infrastructure works at all.

As mentioned earlier, I was facilitating the installation of solar panels to six other village hubs. I worked closely with the technician of KC Company to install the solar panels in the following village hubs: Prey Thom Hub, Kum Num hub, Prey Plorng Hub, Pong Ror Hub and Chamkar Check Hub. The technicians also helped us move the temporary solar panel installed in the HQ to Beuk Touk Hub. I also managed to complete the wirings for the electricity at the HQ that will allow the staff to work even at night.


With the Multi-media Coordinator gone, I supervised Multimedia Team in producing audio materials. We were able to complete three scripts and at present the voice overs are now being recorded and will be edited soon.

In preparation for the Project Manager's presentation on Khmer Script in Computer to MVU students, I organized the venue and handled the logistics. More than three hundred students of MVU from both the Faculty of Agriculture and the Faculty of Management attended the activity. The presentations were divided into two groups, one in the morning from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM and other one in the afternoon from 1:30 PM to 3:30 PM. Based on my observation, I found that the students were very interested at this new knowledge and very much prefer to get this application. This is the first time that they had seen the correct usage of Khmer Script in Computer, which is a big issue for them before. This presentation also gave satisfaction to the Rector of Maharishi Vedic University because of the benefits that the students can get from it. With this application, the students will be able to type the correct spelling of Khmer words.

So these are all the things that transpired in the past week. I will come back for next week's update.

With my best regards,
Dimanche Long