Second Week Journal of November 2007

Dear colleagues,

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

With my best regards,
Dimanche Long

First week resuls of KCM Multimedia Team

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

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.

August Update from KCM Pilot

Good morning from KCM,

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With my best regards,
Dimanche