The i-REACH Project Blog

Happy New Year!

2011-12-31T16:33:00.000+07:00

Dear all,

Wishing all of you and the rest of the family a healthy, peaceful and happy new year.

Best regards,

Hak Sokleap

iREACHKepOnTheFaireOrOnTheNews

2009-12-27T11:09:00.003+07:00

Dear all,

Could you please have a look attached pictures of what iREACH Kep is fantastic at Kep Trade Fair which organized by MoC from 26-27th of December 2009.

Just the first day there are 2,575 people at the iREACH booth, including 1,163 women which representing:
1. 25 people were using internet;
2. 110 people were asking information about iREACH;
3. 200 children were using XO laptop; and
4. 2,240 people were looking to the iREACH booth
5.
Pls note that the purpose why we are at the fair is to let Cambodian people who comes from difference provinces, especially PNH people and people comes from Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia that Kep people is about (e-people?).

Thank you Mr. Huor for approving to have such this fantastic opportunity and thank you everyone for working hard at the fair.

However, I’d like to say good bye and happy new year!

Future contact, pls send me to Yahoo.com or Gmail.com or by mobile phone.

All the best from Kep,

Hak Sokleap
Pilot Coordinator
iREACH Kep Pilot Project
_________________________________
Informatics for Rural Empowerment and Community Health (iREACH)
No. 141, Street 04, Toul Sangke, Russei Keo, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Mobile: (855) 12.831.264
E-mail: hak_sokleap@kepireachproject.org
website: http://kep.ireachproject.org
www.ireach.org.kh

iREACHingTheUnireached

2009-10-11T09:05:00.000+07:00

1. iREACH the Unreached! Pls link to: www.i4donline.net; http://i4donline.net/

2. How iREACH has contributed to local communities! Pls link to: http://www.conftool.com/prato2009/index.php?page=browseSessions&presentations=show&form_session=37&abstracts=show

iREACH acheivement from RGC

2009-09-14T05:21:00.002+07:00

Dear all,
I would like to share our congratulation for our Project Manager in the occassion that the Roral Government of Cambodia were recognized his work especially iREACH and offer the Mohasena Medal formally within the inauguration of the project and fish day in Kamchay Mear on Septermber 10, 2009.

On the way to Community Self Management

2009-08-25T09:37:00.003+07:00

Dear All,

I would like to share with you the progress of KCM management committee involving the iREACH activities especially in term of Management. One day workshop among iREACH staffs and Management committee to conduct the SWOT analysis on the daily work of iREACH in community both at Hubs level and HQ. After they finished the SWOT analysis the RC included the problem tree to go indeep of each problem and finding the solution and approach for implement to be better and sustainable. For the report of SWOT analysis of iREACH implementation report we can offer in case of you need it!

Regards,

Dimanche

Some Picture of Children playing with XO

2009-08-21T14:41:00.008+07:00

Dear all,

I would like to share with you some picture of children in community playing with XO of some Hubs.

By Mr. Pich Ratha, CF in Pong Ro Hub.

By Mr. Chea Valeak the Technical Assistant, children playing XO at Kamchay Mear Cheung Hub.

By Mr. Chea Valeak the Technical Assistant, children playing XO at Tean Pleung Hub.

Enjoying of XO

2009-08-21T10:09:00.005+07:00

Dear all,

How are you doing? Hmm.. sound so quiet from KCM site on this blog because of we too much busy at community level and also some university work which need iREACH to support. But from now on we are back to this blog and now I would share with you all about how XO going on?

On July 21-24, the KCM's project staff included some Management committee members and volunteer from Chea Sim University of Kamchay Mear were attended training on XO laptop by Mr. Phillip. Within 4 days training I found that they're all enjoyed, sharing each other and self explore many thing about XO, especially the members of management committee whom attend this training (you can see in the picture).

After completely trained by Mr. Phillip, also the XO laptop were distribute to all Nine Hubs and HQ for children in community to access and explore about new technology. This is an additional task for our CFs in village hub to manage and support to the childen in community and this also an opportunity for them to improve their management, facilitation skills and self-confindent (build their own responsibility). Each CF has to come and get the XO from HQ and look through everything before take to their hubs (They have meeting to set the rule for XO using for all Hubs, format for recording, responsibility of CF for XO).

On August 3rd, 2009 all Hubs and HQ were input XO for children in community to access and explore after one week registration according to the criteria set by management committee. In KCM we (Project and Management Committee) decided to make input 5 XOs for each hubs based in 8 hubs and 10 Xos for Prey Phlorng hub and one School based in Kamchay Mear Cheung with 20 XOs and the rest is put in HQ. In the picture you can see how children enjoy, explore and share each other.

Regards,

L. Dimanche

SokleapPolicyMainstreaming

2009-08-19T14:25:00.002+07:00

Policy Mainstreaming!
On of the strategies for iREACH Kep policy mainstreaming at district level had been taken into account by the 1st ICT workshop had been conducted on August 18, 2009 at HQ. There are 10 district council (DC) members attended the workshop.
It was a short training workshop but it is very useful for policy strategy because members of district council were really joining and exploring new technology such as searching information over the internet and communicating via Skype. One of the district council members had expressed his willing to include iREACH in the 2010 district council plan.
Due to the request from district council members, iREACH Kep will willing to train the-five-secretary of DC in term of gaining ICT skill.

KepCommunityChildrenExploreXOLaptop

2009-08-12T16:56:00.003+07:00

Hub based OX laptop education is being exploring and experimenting by Kep community children at the iREACH target area. The program was opened on Tuesday, August 11, 2009 for each hub. There are about 30 children at each come everyday. So totally, there are about 300 children for 10 hubs.
IT IS REALLY EXCITING TO SEE THIS EVEN!!!
Let see in the next three months how this community children will gain knowledge on XO laptop!!!

XO laptop which donated by OLPC is ready for Kep community children!Sokleap

2009-07-22T11:33:00.002+07:00

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XO laptop which donated by OLPC is ready for Kep community children!
It was very interesting training course on XO laptop which provided by Philipp Kocher. The training was held at Kep iREACH HQ from July 13 to 17, 2009. All staffs at Kep very enjoyed with this exploring and experimenting training course to gain their knowledge before they are ready to guide the children soon.
Let see in the next three months how this community children will gain knowledge on XO laptop.

AnExperienceOfICTCommunityBaseManagementBySokleap

2009-06-19T10:14:00.001+07:00

What does work and what does not work On Kep iREACH Management Committee (MC) Election 1. Background Why does Kep iREACH need Management Committee (MC)? One of the main project objectives is to pilot-test a community-driven system of blended technologies in support of services, applications and content identified by the communities as contributing to social, economic and cultural development. The project staff has also introduced to community members that iREACH belong to community. The MC is a key element in achieving this objective. Generally, there were two main steps before having MC, including the Interim Committee (IC) and MC election steps. The following detail steps were followed before, during, and after the establishment of the MC:1. Project introduction to community, including village/commune leaders and commune council 2. Project discussion with key community members to find out what the project management structure should be. The community agreed that they needed an MC, By-Laws, and an Interim Committee (IC) before the MC should be formed. 3. Project discussions with key community members to set up the IC election rules and processes 4. Candidate registration and election campaign for IC 5. IC members election Day (4-10 April 2007) at the village level6. Chair, vice-chair and assistant election for IC7. On-going training to the IC members 8. Others Community By-Laws searching 9. iREACH By-Laws development (this took 3 months)10. Candidate registration and election campaign for MC 11. MC members election day at village level (1-8 September 2007)12. MC members got to know each other and to work together for at least 2 months before the chair, vice-chair, accountant, and assistant elections. 2. What Does WorkA) IC Election Process The election was a three-stage process. In the first step, all villagers were eligible to vote for village representatives and to stand as candidates. There were 20 altogether – one male and one female from each of nine villages, and one representative from each of the remaining two villages in the district. The second stage took place at the district level, where only the elected village representatives were eligible to vote and stand as candidates. This step elected 12 committee members representing each of the three communes in the district (four from each commune). In the third step, the chair and vice-chair were elected by and from the 12 committee members. . The pilot co-ordinator was also a voting member of the interim committee, so the committee had 13 members. Note: Election Day for IC (4-10 April 200): The project staff posted the candidate requirements, on the flipcharts. Staff then explained the process of election by using loudspeakers to the villagers who came to elect their representatives to the . Criteria to be a candidate of the Interim Committee:1. Have general knowledge 2. Can write (Khmer)3. Can read (Khmer)4. Have time to work 5. Strong commitment 6. Working hard 7. Should be active person 8. Have work experience in any sector 9. Have facilitation skill is good 10. To work as a volunteer11. To be honest/non partial 12. Have good communication 13. Have facility for traveling14. Chosen through election Benefit1. Will get knowledge and experience on ICT 2. Will become well known in the community 3. To be a active person in developing the community4. Gain more understanding of community development5. Access to information and experience sharing MandateThe committee will not serve more than 3 months and will be dissolved when the Management Committee is elected Note for candidates: 1. There was no promise that members of the interim committee would be elected to the Management Committee automatically, because it would depend on the new election.,However they were eligible to be candidates during the permanent committee election. 2. The criteria above were set in collaboration between the commune meeting and iREACH.3. Villagers could vote for only one candidate. The votes were then counted and the elected members were announced (one man, one woman). Then the elected members thanked the voters and made a commitment statement to the voters (villagers). B) MC election process The election was a two-stage process. In the first step all villagers were eligible to vote for 13 village representatives, one each from 9 villages, and two representatives (one male and one female) from each of the remaining two villages in the district. The second stage took place at the district level, where only the elected village representatives were eligible to vote and stand as candidates for the positions of chair, vice-chair, and accountant. The pilot co-ordinator is also a non-voting member of the management committee, so the committee has 14 members. There is 40% of Management Committee members woman. Please note that the process at the MC election day was most the same process at the IC election day; and the following steps were followed for the MC election process, which took 3 months: a) Candidate Announcement (3rd week of August 2007). The strategy for announcement was included word of mouse, house to house by IC members, village leaders, village assistant, commune leaders and commune council; and by project staff via loudspeakersb) An election campaign by the candidate (3rd-4tt week of August 2007) c) An election day (1-8 September 2007) for MC members d) MC members get to know each other and work together (9 September-1 November 2007)e) An election day (2 Nov.2007) for chair, vice-chair, assistant and accountant. Note: Criteria to be a candidate of Management Committee (MC)15. To be at least 18 year, including both women and men 16. To have a good reputation 17. To be able read and write (Khmer)18. To work as volunteer 19. To be a resident in the village 20. To be well known21. To be honest/non partial22. To not be a monk 23. To have good health 24. IC members can be candidates if they like to apply 25. Woman are encouraged Generally, staff and community members were satisfied with the whole election process at the village level for both tie IC and the MC elections. 3. What Does Not Work For IC:The election was a three-stage process. In the second step, only the 20 elected village representatives were eligible to vote in order to elect 12 IC members.. Based on that experience, we are not recommending an election where only the elected members at the district level can vote, because you could see the disappointment in candidates who failed at this level, even if she/he was the top candidate elected by her/his community members. The third step, where the 12 elected committee members representing each of the three communes in the district voted for the positions of chair, vice-chair and assistant took place too early. We recommend that you do not have an election for these positions until the elected members know each other well. They should have time get to know each other and work together, rather than voting for a candidate they do not know very well. 4. Conclusion To select one representative at the village level is a better model than selecting two representatives (one man and one woman), as one of them will not be elected (voted down) at the district level. In conclusion, it was a fantastic election of the Kep iREACH Interim Committee at the village level, but not at the district level. The MC election process was better. 5. Lesson Learned
The election for IC at village level was the best.
The election for IC at the district level was not good, but an opportunity to learn. This method is not recommended
We learned from what we did at the IC election, both good and not good. We then applied this experience to improve the MC election.
APPENDICES
Picture of Interim and M Cs election

CapacityBuildingProgramToLocalTeam

2009-06-12T15:31:00.003+07:00

Hi all,

I am Sokleap, PC at Kep iREACH. Yesterday I saw Sopheak who was just promoted as a Technical Assistant, replacing Sophin who was the former Technical Support recruited from Phnom Penh, was working hard with looking like he could deal the problem of internet connection. IT IS VERY GOOD FOR iREACH AND FOR COMMUNITY because he is a sun of community members that can take over responsibility such this job. He has done the progress for maintenance and improving ICT infrastructure.

I am happy instead of community.

All the best from Kep.

जुस्त picture

2009-05-28T11:22:00.004+07:00

Kep Commune council plays with ICT!!!

एक्सचेंज विसित फॉर कम्युनिटी

2009-01-08T17:45:00.003+07:00

Kep iREACH MC members express that it is very good to have an exchang visit to KCM on 5-7 Jan. 2009. Pls see a group photo of iREACH MC members (Kep & KCM). Do more latter.

वोंदेर्फुल!

2009-01-08T17:30:00.003+07:00

One of the wonderful activities of CSD is making a beautiful flower at HQ. This was happened on the staff retreat of CSD to Kep and Kompot from 19-21 December 19-22 2008. Participants are including CSD staff in PNH, CSD staff in Kep (iREACH) and district officers (pls see some picture). That is a great team spirit activity.

What's news fro Kep Pilot!

2008-10-16T10:48:00.002+07:00

Dear all,

Through my personal observation, since late yesterday and this morning, I have seen many communities (over 100 people) come to iREACH’s hubs to get hot news about the border dispute between Thailand and Cambodia. It seems that iREACH is the information stored.
Pls have a look picture at Prey Takoy hub which captured this morning.

Best regards,
Sokleap

Sparkling in Kamchai Mear community in present

2008-09-25T14:30:00.007+07:00

Ms. Khorn Sokunthea is a twenty-five-year-old person who lives at Pongror village, Kronhong commune, Kamchai Mear district. Her province along with Prey Veng province is the priority areas of Informatics for Rural Empowerment and Community Health (iREACH). Ms. Khorn Sokunthea is a second child among six children of Mr. Phann Kea and Ms. Nai Som Aun. Their standard of living is average as they mainly depend on rice as their main crop for farming. On her younger years, she studied hard and wanted to be famous in the society being a community developer. But she had to stop studying in grade 11 at Kamchai Mear high school in 2004 to help in her family’s livelihood and went to work in Phnom Penh as a garment factory worker. With this job, she got a little money to support her family in her hometown and the rest were used for her daily expenses such as water and light bills, food and house renting, etc.

In 2005, she got interested with Mr. Tha Bun who was a farmer and also lived in Pong Ror community. They were married through their own parents’ agreement. As life and jobs for them were difficult, her husband decided to leave his family and worked in Thailand. But Ms. Sokunthea got no information from her husband along time because the information network service was not available in their community. It was difficult and costly to go to Phnom Penh or the other provincials just to make overseas calls.

Until 2006, her life and wisdom in the past were step by step beginning to be hopeful because iREACH project started their program in Kamchai Mear community which aimed to improving life through information and communication technology (ICTs). It also provided important service network to community such as computers, internet, e-mail and community sound information program which related with health, agriculture and education…etc. There are three main objectives of iREACH project in Kamchai Mear district. First, for informing information and communication technology (ICTs) to the country area in the community; second for changing or developing community’s standard of living in the country area that follows by providing ICTs; and third for informing in preparing the ways of government policy. ICTs are gone quickly to Kamchai Mear community because of having iREACH project, which introduced information to the country area in the community.

Ms. Sokunthea always used the project information hub that was introduced and supported by Mr. Pich Rotha is a community facilitator in Pong Ror information hub. Because of the information and communication technology (ICTs) is not yet modern in the community and they still lack knowledge, she met difficulty in her first time of using such the Khmer typing is poor, searching to find the information who want to know in internet is not possible….etc. But then, she used it more often to be more knowledgeable until she could use ICTs by herself and didn’t need support from community facilitator of iREACH project. Three month later, because of her hard work and careful using of the network service of iREACH project‘s information hub, Ms. Sokunthea can now understand ICTs. She could fluently type (Font Khmer) by using Khmer UNICOD, prepared administrative document such as festival, wedding invitation, and other ceremony in village. She could also search other information from the internet system that related with agriculture, health, education, communicate with her relative or friends in inside and outside of country by e-mail. Furthermore she could help and share her idea to the other people in community who wanted to know the information and communication technology (ICTs). This action was referred to by someone as “STEP by STEP” no someone was born wise, they have to study hard for getting success in the bright future.

Relating with iREACH information hub, Sokhuntea spent a bit time with the whole family in her free time from work to use Pong Ror information hub for finding knowledge and information and to setting them to practice in her own family especially relating with agriculture, education, health that are the important information for practicing her own family such as rice crop methodology, vegetable, fruit tree, feeding, and understanding about domestic violence, safety of immigration, traffic law, health prevention, cheating……etc. Now, she has been using information hub of the project which is all the service of iREACH project and community in developing area. Moreover, she also shared lots of her experience on ICTs to the other people conscientiously. Because of her hard work and struggle, she now lives around Pong Ror community information hub and become friendly and sensitive to all villagers in using the information and communication technology. Moreover, iREACH Project appointed her the lead person in the community in ICTs for developing knowledge. Now, she will be trained by iREACH Project for sustainability.

iREACH has made ICTs accessible and understandable to the people in the community who had no ICT knowledge in the past. It also helped them develop their source of livelihood by using information and communication technology from iREACH information hub as being shown by Ms. Khor Sokhunthea as their model. She got knowledgeable and successful because of ICT system which we believe all community can be the same using ICTs system. With that, information which can be readily accessed from project information hub and could be of great use in their daily work and could improve community livelihood as well as its social being.

How much I was enjoying?

2008-09-13T10:43:00.005+07:00

Have a look this materials, how much I was enjoying at the IDRC-PANdora Capacity Building Workshop, Penang, Malaysia. Please link to video

Khmer Unicode Contest Result

2008-09-11T15:02:00.003+07:00

After finished organize and mark for the Unicode Contest among KCM CFs we found that in average they can type 52.58% among 639 words in Khmer, with average mistake of 9.98% in one hour. Mr. Moa Phanin the CF from Prey Plorng Hub can type up to 61.66% (394 words) with only 3.55% (14 words) of wrong words, and Mr. Kheiv Kimsreang CFs from Kamchai Mear Cheung Hub can Type up to 65.73% (420 words) with only 8.33% (35 words) of wrong words, and the other can type Khmer Unicode around 40 to 60%. As my observation, I can say that much of working time of our CFs were spent for community and teach to the student and during free time (night time) they are not use computer because they need to save power for working time in term of saving the power for running the project.

Family Link-Up Discussion

2008-09-08T08:05:00.003+07:00

On September 4, 2008 at iREACH KCM HQ conducted a meeting to discus the result of survey on family link-up with Management Committee and Project staffs which presented by Mr. Pin Tara (KCM Research Coordinator). After presenting and verifying the result of survey, Project Coordinator also facilitated to define the price list would Community Committee charge from community member regarding to the country. As the result, we had approved for the price of calling from project's hubs to hand-phone/table-phone and pointed four locations to install equipment for oversea call for testing (those are KCM HQ, Kamchai Mear Cheung Hub (Kranhoung Commune), Tean Pleung Hub (Smoang Cheung Commune), and Prey Thom Hub (Smoang Tbaung Commune).

IDRC-PANdora Capacity Building Workshop, Penang, Malaysia (Sept.1-14, 2008)

2008-09-06T21:40:00.001+07:00

Sokleap is attending the IDRC-PANdora Capacity Building Workshop (I+II) at Wawasan Open University, in Penang, Malaysia.

The IDRC-PANdora Capacity Building Workshop I was focusing much about Strategy Plan for Open Distance Learning (ODL). And the Workshop II will be focusing about the design of curriculum.

The strategy Plan for ODL was look into four sectors:

1. Environmental analysis including (1) social environment; (2) technology; (3) economic; (4) educational; and (5) political

2. Internal Competencies including (1) financial resources; (2) human resources; (3) media/communication; (4) teaching materials; and (5) support from government and stakeholder

3. Partnership including government (ministries), NGOs, community, private sector, media and potential donors

4. Marketing including TV, radio, print, e-web, seminar, exhibition and open ceremony

It was very interesting and useful capacity building workshop for those managers who are responsible for ODL even now and in the future.

Mgt Committee Commit to Use ICTs

2008-09-04T13:35:00.004+07:00

Lady with sunglass infront of computer is the Chairwomen of Management Committee of KCM community and another one who handling Unicode Keyboard Layout is the member of Management Committee, they both are attempting to learn Unicode typing in break time during KCM project staffs and committees meeting as well as the participation of community members in using ICTs at Hubs level are also increasing.

Khmer Unicode Contest amont KCM's CFs

2008-09-04T11:35:00.003+07:00

Dear all,

How are you going on? Today I would like to share with you all about KCM staffs, this morning iREACH KCM conducted a contest of Khmer Unicode Typing among CFs (10person) to test their capacity and to see how familiar they are Khmer Unicode (PAN Localization source). One hour test were done with two pages of text of iREACH situation (included some English word) and differences font of Khmer Unicode were applied. The result of the contest will present to you all this afternoon.

With Regards,

Dimanche

Finally community can reach news via Skype

2008-08-21T16:51:00.003+07:00

Congratulation to Kep Community!

Today, we test our live broadcast from HQ to hubs via Skype (audio).

4 hubs are being tested. 3 hubs are in Kep and one hub is in KCM.

Well, students at those hubs can listen to the NEWS.

We will do someting next.

Share Experience and Lesson Learn Research Activities

2008-08-12T15:12:00.007+07:00

The first, i want to say hello to everybody

for the research in the Last of July and the first week of August had complete some activities such as Attend in the OM/speak self evaluation, update the new database for user monitoring and Family linkup market research. From these activities, I am research Coordinator in kep got the lesson:

1. OM/speak self-evaluation the lesson learns are:
- This is new application so complex some question and difficult to completed
- There are some question are not clear and difficult to write into English to complete
- Among the All Community Facilitators (CF) and Management Committee ( MC) participants are 3 or 4 person are not understand for this process because the OM/Speak is the English languages so mark difficult to her/him.

2. Update database for monitoring form and analysis the user information on July ( the report I will later )
- All CF can get the new knowledge for using SPSS application, they have time to control the user and they input the user information into the Database by self
- And easer to make the monthly report of user

3 . Family Linkup Market Research lesson learns:
- All CF don’t want to travel to farther
- So spend along time for data entry and clean data
- And spend along time for report writing

One of the experiences for Sokleap

2008-08-07T13:04:00.003+07:00

It is not for you to be shad (Anet) but it is just want to share one of the experiences!!
Raining makes me remember last year experience in Kep!!!
Sine yesterday and today, Aug 2008, there a lot of raining and winding here in Kep BUT I am still working in a nice office, nice desk and nice chair. Moreover, I can access to the internet with stable electricity that it is hugely different what was happened in July, 2007 while Kep iREACH start with little thing in term of nice office, internet and electricity. This time of that time, least year, I was working under the tree, 30mn latter I was running back to the office because of rainy season. Alas! Again, I was running out of office to work in the tent where the contractor of Kep iREACH office (HQ) renovation stocked the cement because we could not work in the environment of noisy, dusty of the building renovation. My laptop was on the table which was in the water and even my seat. My leg was on the brick, suddenly many insets was on my leg while my back was getting a piece of rain water (Dom Nok Tuek Pleang).
I was happy and I am happy when it was raining and it has raining while farmers also happy. Well, farmers are happy while it has raining because of they need water for their farm BUT I need for bathing. why I am so happy too. There are two reasons bellow:
1. I am not take a bath with water which was brought from the pound anymore (it has a lot of worm, plants and mud). It mad me have disease (Romors) and heard hair.
2. I am happy to farmer instead.
This is just one of my experiences with working in Kep.

Start with the newest experience for Saroeurn

2008-08-05T15:29:00.005+07:00

It is not easy for someone who wants to become a writer while the other showed a difficulty in writing what is happening in their community, but the attractively dark and curly hair man showed an interesting in this job.

Cheang Saroeurn, 18 years old, is an 11 grade student of Hun Sen Chamkar Dong high school in Kep municipality started with a news episode poet after he attended training on journalism skill organized by iREACH project.

He started with a first topic on “Unsuccessful rape under age girl by anonymous man”. This is a hot news topic which he tries to do in a feature because he thinks that it is over for a few days ago. In the topic he tried to put the main point of journalism writing that he got from the training and what should admire him is including what training did not train yet. He said that “the combination of comment from teacher and a habit of reading newspaper and magazine made him understand some of writing”. Even though, his writing was not considered as a good but it is acceptable. These reflect that it is not difficult to train who gain interesting in writing. “I am interesting in talking and writing, comment from teacher, and I used to read some newspaper and magazine that made me understand in the some part of area” Saroeurn answered a question what factor could encourage you to do this job?

Saroeurn said that it is not a last topic. He is designing to write another topic on the issues of insect is attacking paddy field. He is attempting to tell this issue to government to take action to solve a problem of farmer in area of problem occurring.

One of more than 10 student and villager attended training course on journalism skill organized by iREACH project but Saroeurn is more progressive.

This is one of result which iREACH had done in aiming to built capacity of community member on management and implementation skill in order to encourage them to manage and implement project activities by them self when the project staff was dropped out.

How can visitor/community view iREACH Kep?

2008-07-31T19:20:00.003+07:00

I would like to update you that there are about 4 websites that visitor/community can know about iREACK Kep such follow:
1. htt://kep.ireachcambodia.org - It is called INTRANET. it is about local website that visitor/community can access at HQ or each hub. Aside from Kep Team, community are encouraged to develop the content and post it.
2. htt://kep.ireachproject.org -It is worldwide. It has been posted by PC, RC, MC and TS. We are developing some contents for posting.
3. htt://http://www.ireach/.org.kh - It is worldwide. Visitor can view the iREACH Kep by link to "Kep Portal" or they can link to "iREACH Blog"
a)"Kep Portal" has been posted by Kep Team
b)"iREACH Blog" has been posted by Kep Team or KCM Team
4. htt://www.csdcambodia.org - Of cause, it is worldwide. It has posted by CSD IT Manager.

iREACH Kep to the OM/SPEAK

2008-07-30T18:23:00.002+07:00

OM/PEAK is of the most important work for Kep iREACH. It is about yearly project report establishment. There was many steps were conducted such as:
1. PC worked on the Operational Env.
2. Each staff worked individually on the Resources Audit
3. All staff worked on the Output
4. All staff and MC members worked on the Impact
5. Sent it to Sean for the edition/comment/question
6. All staff and MC members met again to finalized of what was commented/questioned from Sean
7. Sent it back to Sean for edition.

In conclusion, it is hard work but we are satisfied our one year report. (message from Kep PC)

Note for July!

2008-07-30T14:53:00.002+07:00

1. Conducted "Familiy Link-up"survey
2. Conducted OM/SPEAK workshop with MC members
3. Skype Audio Conferance was canceled because of the internet connection

Note by Kep PC

Audio Materials will be extended on Radio Station!

2008-07-30T12:00:00.006+07:00

Starting from Aug, 2008, audio materials will be extended on "National Radio, FM 99.70 MHz, Kompot Province". It is an other step more forward. A message from PC Kep.

Mobile Video Show

2008-05-07T14:34:00.002+07:00

iREACH Promotion!

Education!

Entertenment!

I wish you getting better soon Zarah!

2008-05-02T16:46:00.003+07:00

Dear Zarah,

Are you getting better?

I wish you getting better soon.

From Sokleap

CSD test video conference!

2008-04-18T14:33:00.002+07:00

Today CSD will test video conference from CSD PNH to Kep during CSD staff meeting from 3pm until 5pm. I will update later how it is going on!
Sokleap

Trango Adapter was demage

2008-04-18T08:27:00.003+07:00

When it has raining here in Kep I am so worry about light struct!!!!!

And I would like to update you all that the Trango Adapter at What Phnom Sor Sir was broken because of light struck when it was raining. I remembered that on that day there are two cows (mother and baby) die and one man was 'lose of consciousness is was because of light struck!

Sokleap

KCM Update

2008-03-12T09:05:00.002+07:00

Dear all,
How are you going on? I would like to share some new updates from KCM site.

ICTs Infrastructure: For January 2008, the TS of the KCM pilot seek and explored some software for video conference such as NetOP School, i-visit and also collaborated with Gateway technician on stabilities of the networks. As the result of exploring, the NetOP School software was suggested to replace by other software ecause NetOP School based on the LAN and need a high speed bandwidth (at least 10Mbps) and our CPE Wimax can support up to 1Mbps, and Trango can support up to 10Mbps. Beside of the NetOP School, TS tried to test the other software call i-visit which recommended by PM but this software is need stable internet signal. TS spent his time to work closely with Technician from Gateway Communication Company to configure the network in all hubs to ensure its work properly. Base on the MoU, the project will provide internet signal to MVU, TS was dispatch to see and configure the network in MVU to make it work properly and as the result MVU has to purchase some equipment to make it work.

Research Activity: For February, the research coordinator was spent most of his time in documenting the process and other activities of the project. The achievement of this month are: completed the draft commune profile, three minutes meeting in both version, completed draft process of management committee election, and also published and distributed two iREACH note on Sugarcane and Cucumber.

Content Development: The missing of the Multimedia Coordinator is giving more tasks to CDs to handle, up to the end of February the CDs produced 6 new audio productions (New traffic Law Version 2, 7 vaccination, Tuberculosis, Pig Raising, Sugarcane Planting method and the effective of chemical fertilizer on soil and crop). Only two audio productions were recorded and distribute to target pagoda. In February, CDs try to test the first mobile video show in three communes (Prey Thom Secondary School in Smaong Tbaung Commune, Smoang Primary School in Smaong Cheung Commune and Kamchai Mear Market in Kranhoung Commune). For mobile video show we played the audio of the project and the picture slide show to the audiences before playing the movies. After finished disk one the CD also announce to the audiences about the project and the Hub close by to their village, and services that project offered.

Service Accessing and ICTs Training for Community: February is not different from January; there are many people access to the internet both in HQ and Hub especially in HQ by students. Base on the report of the CFs at Hub level still mostly focus on computer training to students except HQ which postpone the training, but we also found that it’s the first time that elder people came to our hub and try to type their name. At hub level we found that the eldest people come to type their name and listen to Buddha pray through “www.dhamma4khmers.org”. The total money earned from these services both in HQ and Hubs are now up to 100 Dollars and this money is keeping for community.

Project Staff and Management Committee Meeting: In February, the project only conducted meeting one time for project staff meeting to discuss about the progress of their activities. In the meeting, beside of discuss the progress of the project, staffs were asked to review the form that applied and asking to prepare the equipment and services follow up form.
Visioning Workshop: based on the objective of the project which want community to drive this project, the visioning workshop was pointed to do to set up the vision, mission, boundary & strategic partner, out come challenge and progress marker by community its own. Refer to the discussion of project team with our participatory advisor, the dry run have to be done before conducting the real visioning workshop and this decided to do in KEP pilot first (dry-run on February 26 and visioning workshop for KEP on February 28, 2008). I spent my time to attend and assist KEP team in doing these activities, as the result we completed the Vision, Mission, Boundary & Strategic Partner and Outcome Challenge, except only Progress Marker that not yet done because of time limited.

Welcome Visit: This month the project team in KCM welcomed the visit of Ms. Jackeline from Singapore and Marksurman from Tele-centre. The visitors were welcome presented by the PC in KCM about the progress of the KCM up to date and also the trial video conference (audio conference) by the TS. After presentation in HQ the visitors were welcomed by the PC to visit in Two Hubs and a Pagoda to see the actual activities in hub and the equipment for broadcast audio production.

IV. Conclusion:In short, I can say that beside of performance our regularly task of each division, project staff have more clear picture of the project (especially Community Facilitator) and understood of their responsibilities and committed to work. This month because of change in climate, project also faced with electricity exhausted in HQ and some hubs but in the HQ this is not cause problem because we have the generator for supply power to our work.

V. Difficulties and Solution: The climate was changed in February, some rain fall caused our solar panel cannot produce power enough for support to our equipment. In HQ this is not a problem because the project has a generator offered by the central and we just need power for 2-3 hours in the morning. But the problem occurred in three hubs such as; Prey Plorng power run out in the morning of February 27, 2008, Tean Pleung power run out in the morning on February 22, 25, 26 and 27, 2008 and for Beuk Touk normally power run out in the morning for 2 hours.

How iREACH can empower local woman?

2008-02-21T11:00:00.002+07:00

I am so happy when I see local woman can work the same as man.
I used to see only man operated the live show at our HQ but today (18 Feb) I see woman can be an operator while she is reading.. wow!!!!!!

Before she work with iREACH, she know nothing about radio production but now pls look at her action in this picture.

SEE, HOW iREACH can build the capacity for local woman!!!!!

a small note from Sokleap!

Feedback survey on audio broadcasting in pagoda on every holy day

2008-02-07T17:18:00.000+07:00

At the beginning of project, a baseline and need assessment survey was conducted in the three target commune of project such as Smoang Thbong, Smoang Cheang and Kronhong. A now, the project was produced many audio production related with agriculture, education and health and broadcasted into the community by loudspeaker in 11 pagodas located in target commune of project in Kamchai Mear District. So on, the project want to know the result of audio broadcasted in pagodas was conduct the survey to get feedback from the community for improve broadcasting method. The purpose of this survey was to identify the best method for broadcast, adaptation of audio broadcasted in pagoda, community’s material for get information and percent of farmer to recognize the project. The results of this study will help to the project staff to identifying the best method in the future for broadcast the project production into the community following to the objective of the project.

This survey was conducted in three target commune of project in Kamchai Mear district, Prey Veng province - Smoang Thbong, Smoang Cheang and Kronhong. In doing in this research, 110 households in the community were individually interviewed face to face surround of 11 pagodas (10 household per pagoda). The survey activities consist of survey planning, data collection training, data collection, data entry, data analysis and report writing. The survey was conducted in November, 2007.

Questionnaire was developed base on the farmer adaption of audio production that we broadcasted in 11 of pagodas located in the target commune of the project. Research coordinator and content developer contributed significantly to developing this questionnaire which was verify corrected by project director and project coordinator before conducting this survey. Moreover, the questionnaire was developed to be as simple as possible so as to reduce errors during data collection and recording, and to ensure all questions could be easily understood by both of interviewer and respondents.

The collected data was checked thoroughly and then entered directly to SPSS packages by the data entry team consisting of the research coordinator and one content developer. This task was completed on the week after data collection. This survey was analyzed by SPSS (Statistic Package of Social and Science) and Excel packages. Frequency, descriptive statistics, and cross tabulation procedures were used to produce the outputs of the data survey. The outputs of data analysis were converted into the form of tables and graphics, so that they can be easily interpreted.

As the results of feedback survey on audio broadcasting showed that: very separate between the numbers of people who known and unknown the iREACH project. More than 88 percent didn’t know the project because of project didn’t promote all of activities everywhere of the priority project area. Moreover, for the audio production was produced many audio such as iREACH belong to community, water sanitation and dengue fever for broadcasting into the community but now we broadcasting through the pagoda in every holy day didn’t enough for community to get this information. Total 60.91% didn’t have the audio information of the project and 39.09% only got this information but not clear. Moreover, a little household located surround of the pagoda and many household located far from the pagoda so we could be improve of our broadcasting into all area of our priority project by another method including video spot, note or poster...etc.

In addition, all iREACH’s project staff must be set up the activities plan for actively promotion about the iREACH project to community. Especial must conduct campaign to all target area of the project and in the capital town and producing the other program to promote the local people to participate in the project. Moreover, we should be develop the newsletter of the project objective, project goad and project activities in present and future for broadcasting into the priority area of the project. In addition, we should be communicating with whole authority in the area of project such as village and commune chief to explain them about our project activities for develop their household because they can provide these information to another peoples living in the community.

Best regards

Pin Tara

Research Coordinator

iREACH, KCM, MVU

Feedback Workshop on Baseline and Need Assessment Result

2008-02-06T07:51:00.000+07:00

Good Moring Lady and Gentle Men. Very sorry for didn't blog along time because I don't understand with this. First time, I want to introduce myself in the iREACH Project Blog to know and welcome. My name is Pin Tara, a research coordinator of iREACH pilot project in Kamchai Mear district, Prey Veng province. Everybody can call me “Mr. Star” (Sorry just joking).

In first week on Thursday January 02nd, 2008, Kamchai Mear team of iREACH project has performed the workshop on “baseline report and need assessment of CHAMROEUNVITYEA CHUNBORT Community of Kamchai Mear District” at new office located in central of Kamchai Mear district hall. There are 31 (05 females) participants attended in this workshop came from Maharishi Vedic University (MVU), Education Office (EO), Agriculture Office (AO), Public Health Hospital (PHH), High School (HS), PRASAC, Management Committee Member (MCM), and Chief of Kronhong, Smoang Chheng and Smoang Thbong commune. This workshop presided by Mr. Pin Vannaro is a Project Director and facilitated by Mr. Pin Tara is a Research Coordinator of pilot project in Kamchai Mear district. The objective of workshop is to gathering and capturing feedback from community and strategy partner on the data of baseline survey and need assessment was conducted by the iREACH project.

This workshop is mainly focused on baseline survey and need assessment report was prepared by the project to get feedback from strategy partner for complete with these documentations. This workshop also discuss on actual problem in community on agriculture, education and health (identify problem and solution); difficulty for transfer information to the community; and current priority needing of information for developing their community are easy for contend developer to broadcast information to the real community.

As a result, the actual problems in current community are: animal disease (foot, indigestion, diarrhea..), chicken disease (influenza…), low of rice yield (lake of technologies…), insect damage (leaf folder, inchworm, stream borer, grass hopper, brown plant hopper…), lack of alimentation, lack of sanitation, limit of knowledge, lake of health service, miserable, Immigration, and distance from school to home. Moreover, strategy partner was provided feedback and comments to edit some data such as the number of non enrolled children from 6-12 years of age, percentage of community rent rice thresher, household type, name of organization, percentage of home gardening, draft animal use, requirement of information … etc.

The workshop was run smoothly under facilitation and presentation by Research Coordinator and with strong involvement of multimedia team. The workshop was under overall coordination of Project Director. This workshop was finished on time and following to the agenda and time frame and this workshop is successfully due to taking care of the both of facilitator and strategy partner.

Best regards

Pin Tara
Research Coordinator

iREACH, KCM, MVU

Brief information from KCM

2008-02-04T16:09:00.000+07:00

Dear everyone, sorry for late to post this information to you all.

ICTs Infrastructure: For January 2008, the TS of the KCM pilot seek and test some software for video conference such as ACCESSGRID and NetOP School. As the result of testing, the ACCESSGRID software did not work well with our network because of this software were not support to Window Vista and most of our project computer are Window Vista basic. For NetOP School, its seemed work well with Window Vista but for the first testing it doesn’t work well and this is under finding result of TS. By the way, after testing these software the TS found that some part of our network especially Antenna at Hub not perform work well, and he had sent this problem to Gateway.
Research Activity: For research activities in this month, the RC spent much of his time in documenting (minute and report writing of meeting and training); preparing community profile and this community profile just complete about 40%. Beside of documenting, the RC conducted a feedback workshop to strategic partner on baseline and needs assessment result. After this workshop, we got some requests to correct the data by comparing to the national figure. The iREACH notes production and distribution were done by RC, those iREACH notes are radish and watermelon planting method.
Content Development: Until the end of January, the multimedia team still misses the MC which gives a heavy hand to CDs to ensure the activities of content development get success. In aiming to develop the content for community, CDs work closely with management committee in identifies the topic for audio production and produces the material for community. 4 audio productions were produced and recorded to cassette for distribute to pagoda, beside of audio production, the CDs committed to produce the video clip on school enrollment which played by community. The Video clip were produced with collaboration of CDs, PC and management committee and used the local resources.
Service Accessing and ICTs Training for Community: January is the month that many people access to the internet both in HQ and Hub especially in HQ by students. Base on the report of the CFs at Hub level still mostly focus on computer training to students except HQ which postpone the training, but we also found that it’s the first time that elder people came to our hub and try to type their name. There are 3 elder people come to our hub in Prey Phlorng to type their name and exited what they see in computer. Even this point occur but we still get feedback that the elder willing to persuade their children to access to our hub.
Project Staff and Management Committee Meeting: this month the project staff meeting have been done as normal, beside of discussion on the result of project activities, all CFs were provided the awareness of a whole project picture. On January 31, 2008 the management committee meeting was organized and facilitated by Mrs. Vong Kannareth Chairwomen of community and this is the first time for committee to lead the meeting. This is a way that we can give hand to community to drive their own community by themselves through delegate one by one task to them. With this process the capacities building also included to guarantee the smooth running of project activities.
Attending meeting and Workshop: Regarding to the plan, the 4th meeting of the project staff have to be held in January. This meeting were attended by all project staffs in both location and this is the first time that all CFs, CDs, RC, MC and PC meeting together with the representative from the center who have PM, RM, Admin and Financial officer. During the meeting we also revise our plan from February to April, discus on visioning workshop preparation, and preparation for launching project at the end of April 2008.

Best Regards,
Dimanche

Not good for internet connectivity

2008-02-01T11:55:00.000+07:00

This week, the internet connectivity is not good (stable) even Sophin tried the best... Pls look at hi...

The reason, maybe cecause of the weather...many cloud...

I post this insteat of Sophin because he did not invited yet to the blogger. Zarah, could you pls invite hime.

Best wish,

Sokleap

December Report

2008-01-15T08:02:00.000+07:00

First of all I would like to appology for late to post the up date information of KCM.

Monthly Report of December 2007

I. General Information
Project title: Informatics for Rural Empowerment and Community Health (iREACH)
Funded by: International Development Research Center (IDRC)
Executive Agency: Ministry of Commerce (MoC)
Implementing Agency: Maharishi Vedic University (MVU)
Project Duration: August 17, 2006 to April 2009
Prepared by: Long Dimanche
Date of Report: December 31, 2007
II. Summary
December is the last month of the year but for the project it’s not yet. In this month KCM staff pay their best to perform their work with the good results such as we have completed the network security by established firewall, recruited all CFs to handle the hubs. For multimedia team they produced 7 audio productions on pig and chicken raising, seed storage, new traffic law of Cambodia (a continue topic), diarrhea and typhoid fever. In term of research division the RC completed two more iREACH note on Radish and Watermelon Method, three minutes of meeting and ongoing on processing documents. This month the project employed 6 more CFs to fill the spare hub, this can be done also because of the commitment of center in delivering the equipments to KCM.
III. Detail Activities and Results:
ICTs Infrastructure: on December the technical supporter of KCM project completed the configuration of wireless infrastructure and established the firewall for the whole system of the project. A part of the reconfigure wireless infrastructure the technical supporter spent his time in testing the software for the video conference with yahoo messenger and the open sources (access grid) software. But unfortunately, this task was failed because of limited of time and corrupted of the internet access (the internet was cut off while down loading the software). Beside of the regularly training on the internet and email for public, this month the project conducted training on computer maintenance for all project staffs for two days. This training covered on how to work with window vista home premium, computer maintenance and networking with windows XP and VISTA home premium.
Research Activity: this month the activities of research division in KCM are mostly focus on the documenting of project meeting, Management Committee Meeting and produce iREACH notes. This month the RC spent some of his time to verify the process of Needs Assessment and Management Committee Election Process also. As the Result of RC commitment there are three minutes in both version were produced and two iREACH notes on Radish and Watermelon Planting Method. Beside of these activities, the RC has spent time to prepare the logistic for the workshop on presenting the result of baseline survey to strategic partner in advance.
Content Development: with missing of Multimedia Coordinator, the Content Developers in KCM just only continue their work on producing audio for broadcast at Pagoda. As the result, CDs produced new 7 audio productions and recorded to cassette and distributed to 11 Pagodas. Those audio productions were produced regarding to the needs and resulting from management committee such as: New Traffic Law of Cambodia (the continuo topic), Safe Migration, Typhoid Fever, Diarrhea, Chicken Raising, Pig Raising and Seed Storage. All CDs attended the training on computer maintenance and collaborated with RC in distribute the iREACH notes to community also.
Service Accessing and ICTs Training for Community: Up to the end of December, there are 98 students were trained on computer literature and internet access in three village hubs (Tean Pleung, La’ak and KCM Cheung) and iREACH headquarter. For December 2007, CF in 4 Locations of project earned more than 30 000 Riel from services providing to clients both in HQ and hubs.
Project Staff and Management Committee Meeting: in arming to build team work and following up the daily work of the project, in every two week on Friday, all staff come and sit together to share and discus on results, difficulty and find solution of difficulties or any problems if have. For the first meeting on December 21, 07 KCM staff conducted the first meeting which presided by PD, this is the first meeting which all CFs attended also. In this meeting the new CF have time to learn about the project through sharing of activities by the project staff especially the old CFs. On December 31, 2007 the project conducted the second meeting to sum up the results that have been done by all staff which presided by PD. With this meeting, the new CFs expressed their impression after practice and field study with previous CFs in three hubs and HQ also.
Beside of meeting with the project staff, the PC spent time to facilitate in meeting of management committee for two times. Once on the December 3, 2007, this took for November meeting and the second hold on December 31, 2007 which is the monthly meeting of December. During the meeting the PC presented the result of the project to the management committee and management committee also sharing information from community.
Attending meeting and Workshop: this month PC attended in third Global Knowledge conference in Malaysia with KEP PC, RM, PM and SA. For the period of stay in Malaysia we also have meeting with Maria and Sean to discus about next priority work especially for visioning workshop and project launch. With GK3 I met many new thing both working with community and ICTs technology, it really interesting and useful conference.
Staff Recruitment: after returned from Malaysia, PC recruited 6 more CFs to work in other 6 hubs. Among those there are 4 CFs is just get success in the recruitment process of mid December, 2007 they are Mr. Heng Sambo, Mr. Mao Phanin, Mr. Chhoem Pov and Mr. Moen Mai. The previous success 2 CFs are Mr. Chou Samuth and Mr. Pich Ratha, so mean right now, we have all staff to implement the project. After success in recruitment, all CFs attended in computer maintenance and networking with windows XP and VISTA and they also have time to trained more on internet access and email at headquarter. To ensure their capabilities to manage their own work at hub, they were dispatched to the field practice with previous CFs at Tean Pleung, La’ak and KCM Cheung to learn on daily processing at hub.
IV. Conclusion:
With all above result, we can say that even this month is the busy month of the year but the project staff still committed to finish their own work successfully. Just only a few things that not yet complete because of their personal case of busy. This month is also the first time that all project staffs attended in training together and also the first time which all see each other and sharing knowledge together.
Best Regard,

Dimanche

Feedback Survey on Audio Broadcasting and Connectives

2008-01-08T08:53:00.000+07:00

The first, I want to say hello everybody, in the third week of the November, 2007, I conducted a survey feedback on audio broadcasting through loudspeaker in community in arming to get feedback and find out the additional methodology in broadcasting the information to reach the Community.

This survey feedback have cooperated with Contend Development (CD) term and Community Facilitator (CF) to colleting information in 10 target areas which are Damnak Cham ber, Our Krasa (two place), Phnom Leav, Ampeang, Kos Sam, Prey Takoy, Chamkar Bei, Angkoal and Head Quarter and has 100 sample were selected for interview, this sample were divided 10 samples for one target and this survey report was finished of analysis data and waiting for interpret data from Mr.Bunthoeurn (MC) after this report and commune profile will post on the Beasecomp.

The process of this survey are some mistake from data collector (CD and CF) because they are missing questions during interview by not completed at all in questioner and so spend time for data entry into SPSS program.

The last week of November, I am so busy to Quide the Gateway Company for connectives, the gateway company arrived Kep on November 24, to connect internets and repair error in the left 7 hubs: Cham Kar Bei school hub, Prey Takoy commune hub, Toul Srangam School hub, Phnom Searser Pagoda hub, Chak Riyavong School hub and City hall. After the Gateway technicians worked in Kep four day the nine village hubs and HQ can accessible to internet. ( let me talk about the Community Facilitator (CF) that they work in the village hub to facilitate villager come research news, writing letters and leaning but our FC lack capacity to access the internet because before in the local don’t internet. This is one of the key lesson learn is that it is necessary to focus on training CF to use internet (ICT) to develop their capacity). For Solar Panel Company came on November 25, 2007 to repair the solar error in Phnom Leav Village Hub and Prey Takoy Commune Village Hub to remove the solar panel to new place. Right now, we can say that the connectivity and infrastructure are completed in the pilot Kep area.

Best Regards,

SENG Dara

RC in Kep

Experience from GK3 in Malaysia

2007-12-19T07:50:00.001+07:00

I went to Malaysia for attending one week conference of the 3th Global Knowledge (GK3). I enjoyed with conference because I can get some ideas like telecenter, e-Turkturk, community radio… which we can apply to i-REACH. I was happy to meet with Mr. Huor, Brian, Zarah, Sean, Maria and Dimanche for discussing the project plan and it has kept telling me that i-REACH is a research project, so everything that related to the project THE TEAM HAS TO RECORD/DOCUMENTATION.

When I came back I was afraid at the airport/in the plane because I did not want something wrong was happen to me/all passengers because I going to marry with Dary soon (24 Dec.2007). But now it is fine. Hope to see you all at my wedding.

Best regards,
Sokleap

New experience with our daily broadcasting

2007-12-04T15:44:00.000+07:00

Hi everybody in this blog. How are you doing? Now i am starting to be better for my health after i was absent work for a last couple of week. After back from sick leave i dreamed new initiative idea for being active in audio broadcasting. Oh sorry i am jocking. I would like to share our experienced in audio broadcasting in Kep pilot area.

With a beautiful song through loud speaker that we installed in front of the office of Damnak Chang Oeur district, you will hear a sound of a man shouting the program ''Samleng Sahakum Krung Kep'' means Voice of Kep Community. After that presenter say hello to the audience who are listening to the program. This is the program which we are trying to inform our audience in Kep to aware and get daily information.

While we do not have an own station to broadcast the program, it of course is difficult to inform to the audience. Eventhough, we are broadcasting by loud speaker 2 times a week in a pagoda, village, and cafe shop but it is suitable only the topic like feature and it could not for a hot news.

For a new idea but it is not too technical is install the loud speaker system in the office, which include loud speaker, microphone, amplify, and computer with using a program cool edit pro or audacity, and allow us to broadcast daily information to the audience.

The question is that what topic should be broadcast? and where can we get it when we don't produce on time? It exactly get from a newspaper and download from VOA and RFA and some topic we produce by the team. For instance, in the morning we gather information in the target area then write it and in the afternoon we broadcast it. For the topic we broadcast related to health, agriculture, education, and general issues.

How do we do?

First we play the music to attract their attention then play the main sound of the program or OBB call Voice of Kep Community. Then presenter say hello to the audience with announce a topic we are going to broadcast and get it from, then play a song for 10 seconds after that reporter report their news, sometime are getting from newspaper, and then play the topic that we download from the VOA and RFA. In the end of the program the presenter say now it is time to say good bye and thank you for your attention to our program today and will see you again on tomorrow at the same time then play the music, finish. Three or four topic a day is enough.

This is not too technical and allow us to broadcast a daily program to our audience in Kep. They hear our program everyday.

This is a new idea that we have done. You will learn more, if you visit our work here again.

We are welcome to see you and tell you briefly.
With best regards,
Bunthouern, Kep MC

November 07 Report

2007-12-03T14:59:00.000+07:00

Monthly Report of November 2007

I. General Information
Project title: Informatics for Rural Empowerment and Community Health (i.REACH)
Funded by: International Development Research Center (IDRC)
Executive Agency: Ministry of Commerce (MoC)
Implementing Agency: Maharishi Vedic University (MVU)
Project Duration: August 17, 2006 to April 2009
Prepared by: Long Dimanche
Date of Report: November 30, 2007
II. Summary
According to the master plan from project meeting in KEP, our KCM staff committed to perform all their best to reach the milestone of the project. This month we do not have MC to coordinate the multimedia work, so the CDs try to work by themselves with support from the PC. Within the good team work KCM pilot achieved some of activities such as: In term of multimedia production we had completed 4 audio productions (Domestic Violence, Seasonal influenza, Brown Plant Hopper and Pregnancy Health Care) and recorded into cassette for disseminate to pagoda. An audio production on Composting was produced and waiting for other two audio productions (New Traffic Law and Typhoid Fever) to record to cassette. Beside of these, the CDs also wrote up a new script on Chicken Raising and preparing to make an audio. Most of the minute of project meeting and Management Committee meeting is produced. This month the RC and CDs conducted the survey on feedback of community on broadcasting in pagoda and the report of this survey is still in developing. Three i.REACH notes (Composting, Soil use and Harvesting & Storage rice) produced but still not yet publish. By the way, the infrastructure of KCM pilot is mostly completed installation. The Solar power was installed at all hubs and the internet connectivity hope to complete on December 1st, 2007. In term of Connectivity in HQ we use AP 523c with Omni and P2P 2218 at Hubs.
III. Detail Activities and Results:
Infrastructure: On November 13, 07 the people from KC Solar Company arrived KCM pilot site to install the Solar Power in left 6 hubs such as: Pong Ro hub, Chamkar Check 1 hub, Prey Thom hub, Kum Num hub, Prey Plorng hub and Beuk Touk hub. Five sets of Solar Power installed by KC Solar Company and the other one is the Solar Power that used as temporary in Headquarter. This Solar Power is moved by KC Solar people to install at Beuk Touk hubs in Smaong Cheung Commune. Up to the present, the power for support to the project is already in-place, in HQ have 2KVA, 8 hubs with 220Wp and Only one hub with 150Wp (the one which moved from HQ to hub). For connectivity in KCM, right now, we can say that all locations is accessible, this work have been done by Gateway technicians. On November 29, 2007 Gateway technician started their work at HQ first, before they installed Trango but now the installation at HQ is AP 523c with Omni. With this, they installed P2P 2218 to get the signal from HQ at 6 hubs. Those are Pong Ro, Chamkar Check 1, Prey Thom, Kum Num, Prey Plorng and Beuk Touk hub. Beside of the installation of this connectivity KCM Technical Supporter worked closely with Gateway technician in managing of the whole network. As the result, Gateway Technician suggested to our TS to remove the previous system with the new system which secure and easy to manage because now the connection is possible at all location. So in term of infrastructure, I would say that, mostly of the system is completed.
Research Activity: this month the project staffs conducted a survey on audio broadcasting through pagoda in arming to get feedback and find out the additional methodology in disseminate the information to reach the Community. This survey was conducted on November 7, 2007 at 11 areas surrounding the pagoda which received cassette from project. 110 samples were selected for the interview; this amount was divided by 10 samples for each location and the report of this survey is still in developing. The i.REACH note (leaflet) is another way in disseminating the information to community and this has been wrote up by RC in October 07 on Composting. Up to the end of November 07, the i.REACH note is developed three topics (composting, soil use in Cambodia and harvesting & storage method). But unfortunately, these notes not yet published because it still revise and edit for the final version by RC. For the process of Needs Assessment and Management Committee Election is still in progress, these works have been done and responsible by RC with assisting from CDs. Beside of these, the RC was dispatched to Prey Veng Province and Phnom Penh city aimed in building relationship with the other NGOs, Institution and Government Department (Provincial Department of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture Extension, CARDI and VSF). He came back with the good result and also gets some books for the reference in developing the contents.
Content Development: November is the month that all Content Developers produce media without Multimedia Coordinator because the MC was resigned since the end of October. With strong commitment of CDs in their work 5 audio productions were produced those are Brown Plant Hopper, Seasonal Influenza, Domestic Violence, Pregnancy Health Care and Composting. Among these 5, except only composting audio that not yet recorded into cassette for broadcast because we need to record three audio in one cassette, so it’s waiting for the other two audios which is finalizing (New Traffic Law of Cambodia and typhoid Fever). A script on Chicken Raising also wrote up and for all scripts was comment and edited by PC, PC also assisting in comment on the audio production before recorded into cassette. Based on my observation, the CDs, right now, developed their skill in writing script and producing audio by themselves but they still need to train on some more technical term to produce their products in a high quality.
Service Accessing and ICTs Training for Community: in the end of November, there are 87 students were trained on computer literature and 221students were instructed on Internet Using. Due to this is the new initiating for the community, the accessing/using the services is still in low condition. But even though we found that there are some businessmen come to use project service in finding the information on exchange rate. Other users come to find the information from website and contact to their friend and relative, those users mostly are student and teacher. As the result, project earned 22 000 Riel from services providing to clients both in HQ and hubs. This month the member of Management Committee tried to in Skype from hub to HQ as their first time and they were happy because they can see each other with project staff.
Project Staff Meeting: in arming to build team work and following up the daily work of project, in every two week on Friday all staff come and sit together to share and discus about the result, difficulty and find way to solve the difficulty or any problems if have. For the first meeting on November 15, 07 KCM staff conducted the first meeting presided by Mr. Chea Sokhuor the Project Manager of i.REACH from Phnom Penh city. During the meeting the project staff reported the result that have been done by their own to the PM and the PM also give some comment to all staff in aim to implement their own works with successfully. Regarding to the management system and the information flow of the project, PM also introduced his experiences in working with many firm both in Cambodia and Oversee for all staffs to keep the quality of work and flowing information smoothly. On November 30, 2007 the project conducted the second meeting to sum up the results that have been done by all staff which presided by the MVU Project Director. During the meeting beside of presenting the result project activity, MVU Project Director Mr. Pin Vannaro also mentioned about the work performance and the evaluation of all staffs in the end of October, 2007.
Attending meeting and Workshop: On November 12, 2007 I attended in the meeting with the Resources Person of IDRC from Canada at Seim Reap. In the meeting we have three presentations One by i.REACH presented by both PCs and RM, One by PAN Localization presented by Mr. Chea Sokhuor and the last One by APSARA Authority. On November 16, 2007 the i.REACH project get a high honor to facilitate a workshop on Unicode and Its application to the students of MVU in both faculties. This workshop presided by Project Manager of PAN Localization. This workshop was separated into 2 groups one in the morning and other in the afternoon, and attended by more than 300 students of MVU. Based on my observation, this workshop was very satisfactory and useful for the students and the student also express their proud our own Khmer script in computer, and they very happy with the result of PAN Localization.
IV. Conclusion:
In short, for the whole month of November 2007, all of project staff in KCM pilot performed their best in implementing to achieve the plan. Even though this month Cambodian people have some national holidays such as Independence Day from the colony of France and water festival day but we still can completed the plan that was submitted. In general, we can say that with the close cooperation of all project staff and also the strong support from the central our activities plan was achieved 90% because it still has some report and process that not yet completed. The left few activity shall be completed at the beginning of December, 2007.

Best Regards,

Dimanche Long

The Fourth Week Journal

2007-12-02T06:11:00.000+07:00

The Fourth Week Report

In the fourth week of November, 2007 the KCM pilot completed some activities as below:

Infrastructure: this week the person from Gateway Company came to install the left Hub such as: Prey Thom, Kum Num, Prey Plorng, Beuk Touk, Pong Ro and Chamkar Check 1. For this installation the Gateway technician installed AP 523c and Omni in the HQ and in Hub they use P2P 2218 to get the signal. To make this work run smoothly and easy for KCM pilot to manage all network, the Technical Supporter were delegated to work closely with them. As the result from this cooperation the TS mentioned that we need to re-arrange our network because Gateway changed equipments so the best way in controlling, managing and make it more secure the whole network have to be replaced. This work will be done by KCM TS in next week.

Audio Production: Referring to the plan, multimedia team have to finish 6 audio productions for broadcast in Pagoda and write new three scripts. As the result of their performance, the multimedia finished 6 audio productions and among those there three audio productions (seasonal influenza, brown plant hopper and domestic violence) were distributed to pagoda. The other three audio productions (Composting, New traffic Law and but typhoid is still in finalizing) just finished in this week and recorded in cassette but not yet distribute to pagoda. The script on chicken raising among of three scripts in planning was finalized.

Research Activity: for the research division, this week is busiest in preparing the report of the survey on feedback of pagoda broadcasting. Within this work one of three CDs involved to analyses and makes the report, this report is still in editing by RC and hopefully to finalize by next Monday.

Project Staff Meeting: this week is the second meeting of KCM staff meeting and this is the first time that all CFs attended in the meeting. The meeting was discussed on the result of the activities of the project both in HQ and Hubs. For the result of the HQ as mentioned above, based on the report of CFs, in the three hubs that have been running there are businessmen come to the hub and search for the currency exchange rate and access to other website especially everyday.com website.

With my best regards,

Dimanche Long

Third Week of November 07 Journal

2007-11-23T09:00:00.000+07:00

The Third Week Report:

For the third week of November 2007, we are all in KCM performed our own activities regarding to the plan. As Mr. Neth Sovann the Multimedia Coordinator resigned from project at the end of October, 2007, the CDs is lacking of the supervisor on their script writing and also sound editing. So this week I spent some of my time to assist them in editing scripts and comment on audio production; up to the end of the week 3 topics of audio production were produced. Those are Domestic Violence, Seasonal Influenza and Home Composting, based on my observation, the CDs improved their skills in writing script but eventhough they still need some supervision to make their script better enough. These scripts produced according to the result of needs assessment and baseline survey, also based on commenting of health key person in the community. But unfortunately, these products not yet convert to the cassette for distribute to Pagoda because it take long time to recording into cassette. The pagodas that have to distribute to broadcast are 11 so it’s taking at least 2 days so that why they can not distribute to pagoda.

The Research Coordinator was dispatch to Phnom Penh and Prey Veng to contact with project boundary partners like the Provincial Department of Agriculture, Department of Extension of Ministry of Agriculture, CARDI (Cambodian Agricultural Research and Development Institute) and also with VSF organization. The mission of the RC is to build collaboration between the projects with those partners and to ask some technical books and leaflet or magazine for the reference book for content development.

Beside to these, I spent my time to look at the CV of candidates for the position of Community Facilitator (CF), as result we get 6 candidates who fit to the need of the project. In fact, all CFs were recruited since the end of 2006, but because of the delaying of the employment some of recruited CFs have other job to do and some endeavors their study. Up to present the project have 6 CFs which 4 already employed and other 2 not yet, so to fill all the Hubs the project need 4 more CFs to fill in the spare places. Hopefully all CFs will be employed to work at the beginning of December, 2007.

With my best Regards,
Dimanche Long

Second Week Journal of November 2007

2007-11-18T17:03:00.000+07:00

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

Just for your information first!!!!!!!

2007-11-16T17:09:00.000+07:00

Dear all,

How are you? This is just shows you the update from Kep. I will schedule my time to write what I have observed latter.
1.Today, Solar Company is setting up solar power at the two rest locations (Prey Ta Koy and Chamkarbie). If so, community in Kep will have the solar power at 8 locations such Angkoal, Wath Phnom Leav, Am Peng, Toul Sa Ngam, Wath Phnom Sor Sir, Sala Chak Rya Vong, Prey Ta Koy and Chamkar Bie.

2.Can access to the internet at, HQ, Angokal, Wath Phnom Leav, Wath Chak Rya Vong, Ampeng and Waht Phnom Sor Sir

3.The 18m towers were set up at all 9 hubs

4.There are 80 youth and students are provided on Computer basic learning including email and internet.

5.Today, Multimedia team is recording 9 audio materials including Khan Damnak Chang Eur after civil war, health and most of topic about agriculture. One video script was finished but yet shooting

6.Management Committee are monitoring of how the hub working.

7.We are living the Morning News from HQ through loudspeaker
8.Set up sign/banners at existing site- (HQ, Angkoal, Am Peng, Phnom Leave, What Chak Rya Vong)
9.Research on how the hub is worked.
Best regards,Sokleap

Seng Dara Profile

2007-11-02T15:14:00.000+07:00

Mr. Seng Dara has graduated with a Bachelors degree in Business Administration in 2004 from the National University of Management (NUM) where he majored in Management Information System. After graduation, he spent two years with the NGO Working Groups for Weapon Reductions (WGWR). In his first year there, he was Research assistant in Small Arms and Light Weapons Policy Development (SALW) Project and later on as Program Assistant of the Community Security (CS) Project.
In May 2007, he joined the Center for Social Development as Research Coordinator of iREACH Project in Kep Pilot.

Hello

2007-10-26T14:53:00.000+07:00

hello this is my first post

Sokleap's profile

2007-10-05T17:09:00.000+07:00

HAK Sokleap is the Pilot Coordinator of Informatics for Rural Empowerment and Community Health (i-REACH) Pilot Project based in Kep Municipality. Sokleap is responsible for the overall management of the iREACH Project in Kep Pilot Area in providing new technology to local community and empowering them to manage the pilot project when it will be phased out.

Sokleap joined CSD as Kep Multimedia Coordinator in January 2007. He was promoted as Kep Pilot Coordinator and joined as a senior staff and member of the Management Committee of CSD in August 2007 bringing with him his knowledge and experience for almost seven years from works with other local non-governmental organization (NGOs). He has extensive background in environmental and social issues. Sokleap is the author of a book entitled Environmental, Social and Economic Impact Assessment of Fastwood Plantations in Cambodia, first published in December 2005.

Sokleap was born in Preah Prasop village, Preah Prasop commune, Ksachkandal district, Kandal province where he lived for 17 years where he experienced rural Cambodia. He moved to Phnom Penh in 1998 to study toward a bachelor degree in “Tourism Management”. He completed the associated degree of “The Base of Journalism” while he was running a project called Environmental Radio and Advocacy Program. Sokleap has attended trainings, workshops and meetings in several countries, including Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia and Sweden.

First week resuls of KCM Multimedia Team

2007-10-05T16:19:00.001+07:00

Hello from Multimedia Team, Kcm Pilot Project!

These are the results of the activities have been done for the first week of October 2007:

1. Guide line preparation: 3 guide lines (on topics of Brown plan hopper of Agriculture of my community Program, Pregnancy health care of My health My community Program, and Encouraging on School registration in community of Community and Education Program) were adapted in Khmer and English versions.

2. Script writing: Three script writing for three topics were already written in Khmer version and looking forward to seeing all comments and ideas from the project staff, but for the script on topic of Brown plan hopper is being recorded at the end of this week if available pagoda. More over, we had summarized translation on topic of Dengue fever as an English version.

3. Editing and Re-Editing audio: First version of Water sanitation was finished. Due to suggestion/ comment from project staff to replace the song of the girl in community by the public song, so we agreed to edit as a second version of this audio. Now it is finalized already. For other three audios all information/sound related to each topic (community voices, experts voices, music, information/sound recorded from VOA, RFA) were already edited and waiting for mix together with the host's sound.

4. Tap recording and distributing: Seven tapes with Water sanitation topic were recorded and distributed to five pagodas namely: Cho, Tamenh, Toul Roveang, Kamchay Mear, Smong, Keo thom and Prey Thom.

Some difficulties:
1.Difficult and take time to collect information from communities, because they shied to talk and have limited knowledge.
2.Take time for make an appointment with the experts, they are busy with their plans/works.
3.Recorded sounds are noisy with wind and other outside environments.
4.Raining all days, so we could not make voice record on time as planned.
5.Spent much time to reach the pagodas for distributing audio tapes, because of raining and bumping roads.

September Monthly Report

2007-10-03T08:24:00.000+07:00

It's the end of the month again and here I am with the progress report for the month of September. This report covers the activities implemented within the month of September.

As a summary, the whole month of September had been a busy one for the project staff. We spent our time implementing activities based on our project plan. The following had been accomplished for the month of September:

1. Two new staff members were employed. They are Pin Tara who replaced the Research Coordinator Loek Sothea, and Sok Kanra as Community Facilitator in Tean Pleung hub.

2. Infrastructure (solar panel and internet connection) at the HQ and three selected village hubs (Tean Pleung, KCM Choeung, and La’ak) had been completely installed in September 26. The installation was done in two stages: 1) solar panels were installed temporarily at the HQ and the two hubs (Tean Pleung and KCM Choeung). Internet was only connected in two more hubs in Sept 9; 2) the temporary solar panels were replaced by the Solar Company in September 26.

3. Election of the management committee members had been elected from the three communes. As a result of the election, 12 representatives coming from the three communes (including 6 women) were elected in the management committee. Preparations for the election of the Management Committee started as early as the first week of September. The PC went around the community meeting with the villagers, explaining the rationale of the formation of the Management Committee, the roles and responsibilities of the said committee and the election process.

The election was done after the community approved the Community By-Laws. The election process involved two steps:

1) selection of representatives for each hub at the village level

2) villagers elected candidates (who were the representatives at the village level) at the commune level.

Since there is a big population in the three communes, it was agreed that each commune will have equal number of voters to ensure fairness and equality. The PC explained the election process as indicated in the community by-laws. In order for a candidate to win, he/she should have a vote of 50%+1 and when it comes to gender, the ratio employed was either 2:1 or 3:1, meaning for every two/three seats, one should be a female. The election was facilitated by the project staff with the student-volunteers of Maharishi Vedic University assisting the staff.

4. KCM welcomed the visit of Maria Ng Lee Hon (IDRC) and Denis Roy (Office of the Auditor-General of Canada). On September 11, 2007, the KCM Pilot Project staff welcomed Maria Ng Lee Hon and Denis Roy, a representative from Canada’s Office of the Auditor-General together with Sean O’Siochru, Ms. Seng Theary of CSD and the Research Manager. The delegation was welcomed by the PC, who then introduced the whole staffs to the visitors. The PC also gave a backgrounder on the installation of the infrastructure and the election process of the management committee. The activity was highlighted by the groups visit to the two village hubs, KCM Choeung Hub and Tean Pleung Hub. In both hubs, the group was able to meet and interact with the newly-elected management committee members.

5. Two audio materials were produced and broadcasted. The materials were dubbed in 21 tapes and distributed to 11 pagodas in the three communes of Kamchai Mear. Two topics were produced and recorded into 21 tapes. There were still several topics that are lined up for production (water sanitation, brown plant hopper, pregnancy, and student enrolment. To ensure that materials had been played, the CDs (Content Developers) visit the pagoda during the broadcast day and see how the activity is being received by the villagers.

6. PC attended the IDRC All-Partners Forum as well as the NiDA Research Seminar. This month, the project coordinator was invited to attend in the IDRC All Partners Forum and in the presentation of research by NiDA. At the IDRC All Partners meeting, we were able to meet with other IDRC Partners and it was an opportunity for all of us to introduce ourselves and share experiences among the partners.

8. The project provided training on Internet and Email to community and students. More than 100 students registered and 0ver 60 students were trained both in HQ and Tean Pleung hub. The training was conducted by Mr. Hen Sokchea the Technical Support. We had a large turn out of students who registered with us all hoping to receive training on basic computer and internet use. Of the 100 students registered, 60 had already been trained both in the HQ and in Tean Pleung hub.

Despite the many accomplishments, our team also met several difficulties and the following are some of the difficulties we've encountered:

- We do not have a proper place for recording, thus, we could not produce a high quality recording of audio materials. The staff used the agriculture office of the MVU for recording, however, since it is not noise-free, the quality of our recording is bad.

- Limited production skills and experience of the Multi-media Coordinator (MC). We are currently in discussion on how to better the capacity of the MC to produce good quality materials for the community.

- The installation of the infrastructure took a bit longer than expected. Being newly-installed and alien to us, we could not manage it well yet. We are slowly familiarizing with the infrastructure for better management and development of services for the villagers in the coming days. It will take a long time for us to get used to it.

Despite the above-mentioned difficulties, September was good in terms of implementation of activities. Special mention to the election of the management committee. We are so happy about the results because we have seen full cooperation from the villagers and local authorities.

As a parting word or conclusion, our team is slowly getting to know each other as we basically are a complete team. We are getting to know and are adjusting to each staff's work style and attitude. We find it important to each other so that there is harmony and cooperation (teamwork) within the team and we could find a way to solve project issues together. No doubt, the commitment of each staff is there.

Now that the much-anticipated infrastructure is in place, the community is starting to see what the project is all about. They can access the services provided by our project. In our view, this is the first time that a project is providing services such as outs in the community. They are all excited even if only two hubs at this point in time are working.

Kep District Assembly

2007-08-24T12:39:00.000+07:00

One of the big events that happened after the first i-REACH Project meeting was the district assembly in Kep. Since it was the first-ever assembly held in Damnak Chang'eur after so many years, the preparation was intense even the district Governor himself was involved in it. I, on my part, was a little bit nervous as I was in Phnom Penh for the meeting and I thought I should be in Damnak Chang'eur instead to lend a hand in the preparations. What added to my worries was the threat of monsoon rain. What if it rains and no one will come? Good thing that the rain stopped just before the meeting started. Good thing, too, that Gov. Tep Yuthy's staff were able to do everything that we planned out.

The district assembly was conducted at the same time that the i-REACH advisors had a field trip in Kep. The advisors who came were Sean O'Siochru, Cel Cadiz, Chat Ramilo and Pam Custodio. Mr. Chea Sok Huor was also there as the main guest and presenter and Dimanche from the Kamchai Mear Pilot, too, as I requested him to translate for the advisors.

The Ministry of Commerce representative, Mr. Tes Ethda was there along with the Kep Vice Governor which gave credence to the activity.

83 villagers attended the assembly, and they were composed of village and commune officials, farmers, fishermen, students, women, students, teachers and school directors, monks and achars (laypeople), police authorities, staff from different government line agencies as well as staff from other NGOs.

There were many speeches made. Governor Tep Yuthy welcomed the participants. He said that through this introductory meeting, the participants will learn about the project, its objectives, and benefits to the community. Kep Vice Governor Leng Loeung followed and in his speech, he thanked IDRC for choosing Kep as one of its pilot project areas. He talked about the low level of productivity in Kep and hopes that the project will help change that. Community development projects funded by international agencies are very rare in Kep and so he urged the participants to listen closely and take advantage of the benefits the project will bring.The third speaker to give welcome speech was His Excellency Tes Ethda, the representative from the Ministry of Commerce. He urged the people involved to be clarified of the nature of the project. He also mentioned that technology in Kep is still low and the people still use traditional methods. He also said that the problem is that people do not have the right market information, and so are not properly guided in their production.

The main man of that afternoon was i-REACH Project Manager Chea Sok Huor. Affable and gracefully natural when talking to common people, he easily charmed the crowd, especially the small group of women who were shy at first. He started his speech by translating iREACH to Khmer language and talked about one of its components, namely the Internet. Information, specifically on market prices, weather, techniques on rice production, etc., will be available through the Internet. He also cited the use of email (possible through Internet) as a way of communicating with other people inside and outside their community. He also told the participants that 3 centers or hubs will be selected in three locations/communes. These centers will receive Internet connection and community radio signal, and VoIP service. He also stressed that a committee should be formed with members selected by the community themselves to manage and oversee the services and other activities. He also said that community participation, especially women’s participation, is important because this IDRC project is aimed finding out how blended technologies, such as the ones he mentioned, can help in improving people’s livelihoods. Mr. Huor also mentioned that the district governor has provided rooms in the district office for the iREACH project to use as office. He ended his speech with a request to His Excellency Tes Ethda to give assistance in the renovation of the office building.

The crowd murmured, but it was difficult to ascertain whether the reaction was out of excitement or interest to the project or an expression of disinterest or that they did not understand at all?

So we encouraged the participants to ask us. There was a long silence, and the it was the Vice Governor of Kep who threw the first question. It served as a good lead as questions from the villagers came in. The following were the question and answers:

Question 1: Why Kep was chosen as the project site, how the staff will be recruited and who will be responsible for the equipment, and also about the sustainability of the project.
Answer: Mr. Huor explained that there was a set of criteria and Kep obviously came out fit to the criteria. The project has a capacity-building component. He said that in Kep there will be a pilot coordinator, radio manager, technical staff, etc. and they will provide training to the local people. He also mentioned that the project intends to recruit local people as staff and outsiders would only be considered if there is no qualified local person to do the work.

Question 2: I am interested to know more about the system of information and communication to be installed. Can you give us more information about it?
Answer: Citing Kamchai Mear pilot area as example, Mr. Huor said content developers will be recruited. This local content developers, guided by questions asked by the community, will assist them develop programs (for the community radio). The radio station has a scope of 10 km radius. The community computer/internet center locations will be selected by a committee, and that same committee that will oversee the communication system.

Question 3: Vegetable production in the area is unstable – sometimes it is too high that not everything can be sold, lowering their prices. Will the project then stabilize productivity in the locality?
Answer: Instability of vegetable production is due to the lack of market information to give producers bargaining power with the middlemen. The internet can help address this lack of market information. This will allow the people to access information not just from Phnom Penh but also from other parts of the world. Sean added how the quality of products can stabilize the farm gate prices of vegetable products. Dimanche added that schedule and timing of production are also important dimensions in improving the quality of vegetable produce. His Excellency Tes Ethda also added that a committee should (be formed and) coordinate with the centers to find out, for example, the price and variety of cassava or which crop is best suited in the market.

Question 4: Is there a post harvest technique that is appropriate for our produce?
Answer: Huor gave as an example sugarcane processing. The amount of production has to be based on the demand, which is information that can be gathered using the internet.

Question 5: How much rate (e.g. advertising) will the community radio charge? Will IDRC stop its support to the project?
Answer: The project will be implemented for three years, funded by IDRC. The cost of service charges will be set at an affordable rate, to be based on the advice of a committee from the community. IDRC is supporting this project to study how community life may be improved with the participation of the people in ICTs; to see how women’s participation may be improved; and to mainsteam ICT policies that favor poor communities. To make the project sustainable, the various ICT services will be costed, but only so that these may be sustained. It is also important that to set up an interim committee to advise the project toward its sustainability.

Question 6: Will all the equipments be pulled out after the duration of the project?
Answer: If the project and the community will be successful, the equipment will stay with the community. IDRC is interested in knowing the results of the project here. On the other hand, if there are still needs that arise at the end of three years, the project can ask for additional support from IDRC. Sean said that if the pilot here (in Kep) and in Kamchai Mear will succeed, the project management and advisers will try to persuade the government to do the same thing for the rest of Cambodia.

Question 7: Can you give us more information about ICT?
Answer: This is a new technology and a bit complicated to explain in just one sitting. Community centers will be put up in the future and the project and its components will be explained in great detail in succeeding meetings in your community. There will also be trainings as well.

There were other side topics, but equally important, that were discussed during the assembly. As there is still no electricity in the whole municipality of Kep, Governor Tep Yuthy assured that electricity will be in Kep by the end of the year. Electric posts and wires are currently being installed and it is expected that Kep will have power by the end of the year.

Over-all the assembly went well. Despite the threat of heavy rain, there were a total of 83 participants who arrived to listen and know about iREACH project. The participants were composed mostly of men. Although hesitant and shy at first, the participants showed interest in the project and asked questions. There were 15 women who participated, and through urgings from the audience, they stood up and participated in the open forum, and later overcame the initial shyness. ICT is a new concept for the participants especially in this remote town of Kep where the level of education and the level of technology awareness of the population is low. Although most have shown interest in the project, the challenge now lies in raising their knowledge, awareness and sustaining their interest not only in ICTs but in participation in the project in general.

Site Visit to Kep Pilot Area

2007-08-24T12:24:00.000+07:00

Attendance: Seng Theary (CSD), Im Sophea (CSD), Hak Sokleap (Kep Radio Manager, CSD), Kim Dara (Kep Pilot Coordinator, CSD), Grant Helling (Gateway Communications), Rattanak (Gateway Communications), Che Viseth (Network Solutions), Seiha (Royal University of Agriculture intern), Nara (Royal University of Agriculture intern), Chea Sok Hour, and Zarah Almeida

The objectives of the activity was to do a site survey that will help both Gateway Communications and Network Solutions to address issues raised by Alberto regarding connectivity and for these companies to be able to submit a tender for consideration of iREACH. It is also for the newly-recruited staff of CSD, Hak Sokleap and Kim Dara, to be familiar with the area and to know the key people in the pilot site. Two students also joined the activity as part of their internship program at the Royal University of Agriculture. They are expected to create maps for the Kep pilot project.

Since the locations for the internet hubs/centers have not been identified yet, the group visited potential locations identified by CSD in their previous visit. The group’s first stop was the district office where iREACH project will be housed. We also visited potential sites in Chamka Bei village in Pong Tuek Commune, Tuol Srangam and Angkol villages in Angkol commune, Damnak Chambok and Ou Krasar villages in Ou Krasar commune. Apart from the site visit, the group also talked to the people in the places visited for more information about their villages and village life. The group also visited the municipal hall of Kep and studied the Minister of Commerce’s mansion which is one area needing Internet connection. The engineers from both companies took out their equipment, studied the potential areas in terms of distance from the headquarters and interferences (mountains), took pictures and jot down notes. It is expected that in two weeks time they will submit a proposal with comprehensive details of the results of their survey and justifying their respective budgets.

CSD Executive Director said that they will do a detailed renovation plan, which was requested by Damnak Chang’eur district governor Tep Yuthy during their previous meeting with him, soon. The governor asked for that plan because he needs idea in terms of design and costs to be able to find financial support for the renovation of the building. Also during the trip, CSD proposed to the Project Manager Mr. Chea Sok Huor that additional unit of motorcycle be provided to the team for more mobility and efficiency of staff travel to the target villages. Mr. Huor suggested that CSD submit a proposal to him and he’ll forward it to the donor.

As to the project staff, the Radio Manager will start to work in January 2007, while the Pilot Coordinator will start in February. The Research Manager suggested a meeting with CSD to update on the situation in Kep and revise existing plan of activities based on the current situation, as well as to draw the renovation plan needed by Governor Tep Yuthy. The agreed meeting date will be on the 2^nd of January.

August Update from KCM Pilot

2007-08-20T09:43:00.000+07:00

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

Establishing relationships in the Community

2006-12-05T17:47:00.000+07:00

While the Kamchai Mear Pilot Project made a strong start implementing the first steps, Krong Kep Pilot Project had a delayed start in implementing activities due to some unavoidable circumstances.

Now that these circumstances had been resolved, and the formalities had been done, with Project Manager CSH endorsing me to the Deputy Governor of Damnak Chang'eur, it will be a solo work for me from here and onwards. I will have to rely on my limited Khmer vocabulary, and the kindness, patience and trust of the people whom I will be talking to in the coming days when I attempt to establish relationships and contacts in their community.

As a methodology, iREACH will be utilizing various Participatory Development Communication (PDC) tools in approaching and involving these two pilot project sites and together identify strategies, and for us the project staff to improve communication with them and other stakeholders.

According to Guy Bessette, in his book, Involving the Community: A Guide to Participatory Development Communication, has this definition of PDC:

Participatory Development Communication (PDC) is a planned activity based on the one hand on participatory processes, and on the other hand on media and interpersonal communication, which facilitates a dialogue among different stakeholders, around a common development problem or goal, with the objective of developing and implementing a set of activities to contribute to its solution, or its realization, and which supports and accompanies this initiative.

PDC follows a number of steps, the first of which is establishing a relationship with local community and understanding the local setting.

And so the question, how did we initiate contact with the two pilot sites?
A lot of work that has been done in both pilot areas were building relationships with local authorities and this, we believe, was important in laying down the foundations for our community work:

In the Cambodian setting, visiting the authorities is like an unspoken requirement in order to enter the community. Visits or meetings such as what the project staff did is important as it shows recognition and respect to the authorities, apart from informing them of the project, asking for their endorsement and cooperation, as well as getting their opinion on the project being introduced.

The attitude that the staff showed to these authorities at this initial phase will spell out whatever relationships we establish with them and with the community in the future. It also helped us enter the community easily and talk to the villagers when the villagers knew that we had already communicated with their leaders, so this is why we didn't go directly to the villagers. Even my counterpart in Kamchai Mear could attest to this.

Initially, I thought that my being a foreigner would pose a difficulty in carrying out my tasks. However, the more I immersed myself in the community, the more comfortable the villagers were with me. My Khmer language proficiency was just enough (a level above struggling) for me to carry on conversations, but most of all, the very fact that I look like them (dark skin, small eyes, black hair), I was easily trusted. It also made it easier for me to interact with them, allowing me to enter their homes, and collect information unobtrusively. However, in some instances, my moto-dop driver helps in interpreting/translating some parts of conversations.

We also met with the different government line agencies in the district level. We did this to gather secondary information to support/verify the information we collected from the community.

The staff in both pilot sites spend more time in the community, talking to the villagers - farmers, students, fisherfolks, women, to name a few, and more often, participating in community social activities.

For example, during the Water Festival, I and the volunteer-enumerators from MVU were invited by a local monk to participate in their Bok Ambok festival celebrated in their pagoda. It was such a huge event in Kep where almost all people from different districts come and celebrate the event in the pagoda. Bok Ambok festival is something like a harvest festival coinciding with the full moon. The highlight of the event is the pounding of newly harvested rice into ambok (pinipig in the Philippines) and at the turn of midnight, offer a prayer with the local monk leading the crowd.

So far, the initial work, i.e., understanding the community and the situation in the community had been done, and still is being done. It's going to be a continuing process. I would like to end this post with this:

The idea behind PDC is the use of participatory communication as one of the tools for development. The way the communication is established and nurtured will affect how involved people will feel about the issues raised and how they will participate - or not - in a research or dvelopment initiative or project.
- Guy Bessette, Involving the Community, A Guide to Participatory Development Communication)

Kep Updates (September-October period)

2006-11-06T12:09:00.000+07:00

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...

Computer Orientation in Angkaol Commune

2006-10-04T12:16:00.001+07:00

The orientation meeting was scheduled to start at 8am, but only 4 people were present at that time. The vice commune chief suggested that we wait longer for more villagers to arrive. At past 9am, around 11 villagers (composed of the vice commune chief, commune clerk and villagers from Tuol Srangam and Ampeang villages), with only one woman present, gathered in the commune center for the much-anticipated computer orientation session. The participants were notably all old people.

Being told that no other villagers would arrive, the Research Manager (RM) decided to start through a short introduction. Aside from the RM, also introduced were Hay Him, a student volunteer who agreed to do translation as needed by RM, Rob, who volunteers to work with the project and the moto-dop driver, who also joined the orientation session. RM noted that the villager from Tuol Srangam (Mak Khorn) who requested for this orientation session in the previous week’s commune (introductory) meeting was not present.

Before starting the orientation, RM asked the villagers if they knew what a computer was and if they had seen one. RM also asked if they knew what a computer was used for. The villagers were shy to answer to RM’s question, but one villager said that they knew the word but they didn’t know what a computer was like. Just a note, this orientation meeting was done out of a request from one of the villagers as a follow up to the commune introductory meeting. The villagers agreed on this because they wanted to see what a computer looked like. All in all, the villagers seemed to understand the concept and meaning of the word “computer” but, until the meeting, they hadn’t seen, touched or used one.

RM gave a short presentation on the kinds of computer (desktop and laptop), basic features of computers and how they function, and some features such as photo, video and audio storage/playback. Using two laptops, one from the RM and another from the MVU student, the different parts of computers were shown – from turning the computer on, to the function of the mouse, to computer programs and special features. RM occasionally consulted the MVU student-volunteer for some translation.

First demonstrated was preparing a document in a Microsoft word program. The villagers were pleasantly surprised to see that they could use the Word program because it had a Khmer font installed.

The vice commune chief was especially interested in the Microsoft Word program, he said it would be useful to him in his work. He said he prepares documents for submission to the commune chief, district and municipal authorities, as well as other organizations. RM didn’t notice any typewriters at the office, and when asked how they prepared their documents, the vice commune chief said that they wrote them on paper, then took the paper to Kampot to be typed and printed. He said that it takes time to produce commune documents because they have to prepare all the documents needed and then go to Kampot at a designated time. Urgent documents are a different matter though. Travel time is between 45mins to 1hr by motorcycle from Angkaol commune.

Other programs demonstrated were Microsoft Excel, the DVD/CD player, and a photo album. The villagers were encouraged to use the computers. They were hesitant at first, but later on, one by one, they started to loosen up a bit. After some explanation, the villagers familiarized themselves with the computers and took turns in moving the mouse, flicking through a file of photos (zooming in and out), watching a short video and trying out other programs.

The first question asked was how much does a computer cost. RM explained that some are expensive (like laptops and branded computers) while some can be bought cheaply. One old villager asked RM if the computer would turn off or break down whenever a wrong key was struck. Another villager was also curious about how long it would take to learn how to use a computer, and whether they needed to learn English to do so. RM explained that computer only breaks down if it’s used improperly or gets infected with a virus. RM added that a computer suddenly goes blank (turns off) when there is no electricity (in case of the desktop) and when there are electrical problems inside the CPU. The enumerator then explained what a virus is and how it affects the computer and talked a bit about CPUs. At this point, I am unsure if the villagers understood the concept of “virus” and “CPU”.

The villagers were delighted to see how a computer works and had fun having hands-on practice. One villager (the commune chief of Tuol Srangam) commented that there were lots of new things to memorize/remember and to do to be able to use a computer, which would possibly make old people more inhibited to use them.

The vice commune chief also said that if the villagers don’t know computers yet, they won’t be interested, and suggested that iREACH put computers in place so that it will attract more people. To which the vice commune chief added that we should be patient in teaching them, as most of the villagers in the commune have low levels of education, some none at all. He added that technology was difficult for them to understand and he urged that we should go slowly and not rush the villagers. He also added that it would take more meetings or training sessions before the villagers would be able to understand computers in particular, and the project in general. RM said that these comments would be noted.

Before the group wound up, RM asked the villagers whether their perceptions or ideas of computers had changed. An old man said that “now that I have seen a computer, I want to know more how to use it”. The village chief of Tuol Srangam said that after the presentation, he still didn’t understand computers, but he would still like to learn how to use a computer (very interested to learn how to use).

The vice commune chief asked if the computers would be placed in the commune center and if there were problems, who would help. RM said that it wasn’t decided yet where to put the computers but iREACH would employ local staff to man the computer centers and take care of their maintenance. The vice commune chief also asked where would the computers be located. RM then took this chance to explain about community ownership and the creation of a committee which would decide, among other things, where computers would be located.

One old man said that he wanted the younger people to be involved in this kind of activity because it would give them new skills which they could use when they looked for a job when they left school. The vice commune chief thanked us for starting a project like this in their commune and suggested we have more sessions next time and they would invite students and other villagers to participate. He reiterated that in their commune, technological skills are rare and the capacities of the villagers, both old and young, should be built.

RM then asked them to discuss among themselves a date which would be convenient for all to conduct another meeting. Before the group separated, the vice commune chief said they would set the date and give a call to RM.

***

The computer orientation session ended, but RM stayed a little longer for pleasantries and had a chance to talk to the vice commune chief about the problems his village-mates are facing.

There is an existing community fishery in Angkaol commune, which was established in 2004-2005 (he can’t remember which year) through the facilitation of DANIDA (the staff’s name, according to him, was Lav Bunrithy). During that time, DANIDA assisted them in creating the community fishery group and in drafting their by-laws.

The problem in Angkaol was that there were big boats, owned by private companies/businessmen from Kampot and other areas and invading their fishing space, thus, leaving the fishermen in the village less fish catch. Sometimes confrontations ended up in violence.

So when the community fishery group was established and recognized by the fishery department, the fishermen cooperated in protecting their fishing area. They created an underwater fence made of coconut timber nailed together to prevent the big fishing boats from coming to their fishing area. However, as these boats are bigger and apparently have connections from the powers that be, Angkaol fishermen easily got defeated. But not only that, also some CF members themselves, perhaps due to frustration and hopelessness, turn to their old ways of using illegal fishing methods and ignore the very law that they have agreed on. So now, the members have lost their interest at all because their problem is still unsolved. Now the group remains inactive.

First Post

2006-09-16T11:43:00.000+07:00

I began work as Research Manager of the i-REACH Project on August 7, 2006. That was a year after I first met the team during their pre-project workshop in Phnom Penh and after a series of panel interview and written test that followed.

As the title suggests, my work is to make sure that all research activities are implemented according to schedule and documented for project evaluation purposes. To me it sounded vague, there was no further information to fill me with details but, at the same time, I thought it covers a huge scope.

So tomorrow, I will be moving to Kep to commence the research and community work there while negotiations are still on-going between the i-REACH Management Team and a prospect NGO. I will leave friends and the comforts of Phnom Penh behind to live in the community.

The district authorities in Damnak Chang'eur, through its Governor Tep Yuthy, generously provided us with two rooms (in the district office where he is holding office) for our use. These rooms will be renovated soon to accommodate an office, a community hub for computer, internet and VoIP use, and a community radio.

I will be staying temporarily in a guesthouse in Kep town. The project doesn't support my accommodation, but will provide for transportation expenses. That should be okay. But between the guesthouse and the office in Damnak Chang'eur is about 25kms of well-paved roads and hectares upon hectares of rice fields, so I'll have about 50kms of traveling distance to and from work. Add to that several kilometers more of travel from the office to the other project areas. It sounds tiring, but we will see how I will cope with the work and the traveling.

I am preparing to meet with the district officials, and fortunately for me, my Project Manager had given me a name to talk to when I reach Damnak Chang'eur. It is important that I meet with authorities as they are important actors in our project. Sometimes, it's good to be on the side of these authorities, especially when the project is just in its early stages.

Staff Introduction - Kamchai Mear Pilot Coordinator

2006-09-14T09:50:00.000+07:00

Mr Long Dimanche gained a degree in agriculture for Rural Development in 2002 from Maharishi Vedic University in Cambodia and a Masters degree in Rural Development from the International University. He lectured in MVU on rural and community development, moving to head of the Department of Rural Development in January 2004, and later worked for Centre for Study and Development Agriculture of Cambodia (CEDAC). He joined iREACH in August 2006, where he heads the Pilot Team in Kamchai Mear.

Staff Introduction - Research Manager

2006-09-14T09:45:00.000+07:00

Ms Zarah Jane Almeida has a primary degree in Mass Communications from the University of the Philippines Cebu College in 1994, and spent several years working in media organisations as producer and feature writer and in NGOs before moving to Cambodia. There she has worked for NGOs including Swiss Interchurch Aid, the Association of Buddhists for the Environment, and Mlup Baitong, where she was Grants and Radio Advisor since January 2004. She was recruited by iREACH in August 2006, where she is Research Manager, working very closely with the e-community pilots in all aspects of their work.

Som Savakum.

2006-09-05T10:01:00.000+07:00

Welcome to the iREACH Project Blog. This blog, along with our other web-based communication system, will serve to document and record project communications and processes and methodologies employed in the project.

What is the iREACH Project all about?
The Ministry of Commerce (MoC) has been awarded a three year grant of US$1.2 million by the IDRC to conduct a pilot project called the Informatics for Rural Empowerment and Community Health (i-REACH) in the field of information and communications technology (ICT).

The project runs from May 1st 2006 to April 30th 2009.Three sangkat (communes) of Kamchai Mear district in Prey Veng and another three in Damnak Chang’eur district in the municipality of Kep were selected as pilot areas.

The MoC has contracted the Maharishi Vedic University (MVU) and the Center for Social Development (CSD), to run the pilots in Kamchai Mear and Kep, respectively.

The overall objective of iREACH is to build evidence and capacities to help inform Cambodia’s ICT and telecommunications policies and to mainstream the ICT project to all provinces throughout Cambodia. The specific objectives are:
(i) to establish and nurture the pilot e-communities in the rural locality of Kep and Kamchai Mear,

(ii) to pilot-test a community-driven system of blended technologies as contributing to social, economic and cultural development by deploying wireless technology, solar energy, wind power and community radio,

(iii) to facilitate community capacity-building by training in ICT use, developing service content and enterprise, and

(iv) to document in details the activities and process for research purposes.