Learn, Lead and Share to Make a Difference

Words and Photo by Netting

“I only understand that working on community development is all about giving betterments to the villages by building road, schools, toilets and providing other needed services, but after attending this program I’ve realised the real meaning of community development, that we have to study and understand the situation of the village first and then help improving the quality of lives of villagers to sustainability”, said Ouch Thol, 33-year-old, one of participants from Cambodian Volunteers for Society (CVS).

This one-week programme of ‘Lesson Learnt Sharing Workshop, Training and Field Study Trip’, organised by Cambodian Volunteers for Society (CVS) in collaboration with Thai Volunteer Service (TVS), Oxfam Australia and Youth Resource Development Project (YRDP), brought together 50 Cambodian young hearted-volunteers to share and learn their experiences on community development through volunteerism in order to strengthen up their skills on working social development.

CVS and YRDP have been playing an important role in supporting, training and providing volunteer opportunities for young people, especially graduates and university students to contribute and learn from the communities. “Our youth volunteers have been working in the communities for several months already, but they still lack of working skill and social work skil. So they need this learning and sharing forum among themselves”, explained Pen Somony, 27 year-old, programme coordinator from CVS.

After those young volunteers have presented and shared their lesson learnt experiences to their volunteer organisation and other volunteers, a two-day training on Community Organising (CO) process and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) techniques have given to them before heading for the field study trip in the Mekong community villages of Kratie province, northeast of Cambodia.

CO process is a practical process of working in the community and it guides you from the very first step of staff introduction and orientation to the last step of monitoring and evaluation. Meanwhile, PRA techniques has come along as useful study tools for them to understand the community in different contexts, which consists of data gathering, social mapping, seasonal calendar and transect walk for instance.

Participants of field study trip are divided into 2 study groups. One goes to Ksach Lev village and the other goes to Koh Kchnare village. Both villages are located on the Mekong riverside of Sambo district, which is the neighboring area of the proposed location of the hydropower is. The people of these two Mekong communities mainly rely on the natural resources; fishery and forestry. Education and health are still in the poor situation due to the distant location of the village.

Through the day light, volunteers from each group worked on their assignments; the physical and history data of the village, the relationship in community, the cultivating production, culture, spiritual believes , and the community situation. And the end of the day, each group presented what they have learned from their assignment to the whole group.

Sopheak, one of the CVS young volunteers happily reviewed that she have learned how the social mapping is useful to her ‘community work’, from theory to practice, this study trip brings her to the real situation. ‘Since I’ve been in the community for already three months, I was there with few instruments for community development and I don’t know how to use it effectively like this,’ She is excited to apply those tools when she goes back to her host village next time.

Nearly the end of the study trip, all of young volunteers, children and villagers together and helped fix the road in the community by digging and carrying the soil and the small stones to repair the dirt road. All people in the village were happy for our voluntary project.

‘I hope all people in Cambodian communities have a real heart for their community, they don’t think about only themselves, they must think for today, tomorrow and for the future, in peaceful, beautiful environment.” Added Thol in the end of study journey.

As it is believed that the youth volunteers are potential social activists working in communities. “In the long-term goal, we hope that their capacity of working in social development and volunteer spirit will be more and more built up and they will collaborate among their volunteer networks and also encourage other Cambodian young people to work for community and civil society in Cambodia.”, added a 27-year-old Sambath Bun, a programme coordinator from YRDP.