Nutrition Program at Angkearhdei Primary School

Story and Photos by Lisa Bade

Yoeun Chhang is in 6th grade; he would like to be a teacher.

Meet Yoeun Chhang, age 14
“My name is Yoeun Chhang. I live in Angkearhdei Village with my mother and father. One of my cousins lives with us. We also take care of my sister’s baby; she’s married and lives with my uncle in Kampong Cham, a city about 3 hours away. Her husband buys duck eggs in Angkearhdei and takes them to sell in the city. She works selling the eggs. Two of my brothers and one other sister are living in Thailand working as recyclers.

“I wake up at 5:30 every morning and the first thing I do is take the cows out of the kroul (barn). I clean the kroul and then come to school. I’m in 6th grade and we are the oldest, so we take responsibility to help cook the breakfast. The teachers have divided us into groups. My job is bringing buckets of water from the pump to boil the rice, spices, pork and shrimp into a thick soup called bor-bor. All the children bring wood to feed the fire. We bring the bor-bor to the classrooms in buckets so everyone can have breakfast. Everyone knows they need to arrive at school to eat by 6:30am so that we’re ready to start class at 7:00. Bor-bor is delicious and we love to eat it! After breakfast, we wash our bowls and spoons in the pump and then we older students lead group exercises in the play field before classes start.

“My favorite class is Khmer. We work on learning new words, ways to make sentences, and we also get to read stories. When I grow up I’d like to be a teacher. School is over at 11:00am and I go home to eat lunch with my family. I take the cows to the field in the afternoon. When we aren’t busy, I play with my brother. We like to run in the rice fields!”

Chhang takes his turn to lead the school calisthenics

Angkearhdei Village is still recovering from the devastating floods of 2011. The dry season means that the road to the village is easier to travel, and trade moves back and forth from the village to Prey P’nov – the nearest market town – 5 kilometers away.

Completion rates of the last grade of primary school are still problematic in poorer SE Asian countries like Cambodia, and child labor data is dramatically underestimated in official figures due to a lack of solid monitoring systems. UNICEF estimates that only 54% of all the children who enter primary school in Cambodia will eventually reach 6th grade. Global Family’s support for a nutrition program at Angkearhdei can help the community’s health, as well as giving hard working families a greater chance of keeping their children in school.

Chhang’s class eating bor-bor

The third grade enjoys bowls of bor-bor

After breakfast, the students wash their dishes at the pump

In addition to nutrition support, MCC recently supported Angkearhdei Primary School teachers and the school director to attend a peace-building conference of MCC partner organizations, as well as a workshop on child labor and trafficking issues.

Meet MCCers: Denise and Tony

Denise and Tony in a tuktuk

Names: Denise Reesor and Tony Janzen
Current Hometown: Phnom Penh
Moved to Cambodia from: Goshen, Indiana, USA

How long have you volunteered with MCC?
We’ve been in Cambodia with MCC for just over 1 month now.  We’ve done smaller volunteer assignments with MCC in North America in the past.
Job Title: Exchange Coordinators

What will you do?
Well, that is all still to be discovered, of course! However our primary responsibilities revolve around coordinating the SALT/YAMEN! program for Cambodia. Cambodia hosts a number of SALTers and YAMEN!ers each year. We’ll be working with other NGOs in the country that might be a fit for hosting a YALTer; placing interested young adults in these positions and working to support the YALTers, their host families, and the partner agencies they’ll be working with.

Also included in our job description is leading learning tours to Cambodia and helping Seiha with the IVEP selection process.

Currently, we are doing language study almost full-time and we won’t take on our job responsibilities for another month.

What are you looking forward to?
Denise: What I am most looking forward to in this position is spending time with our SALT and YAMEN! volunteers. I like planning and organizing, in general, and know that I will look forward to the month of orientation when the group is all together. I think that SALT/YAMEN! can be such a valuable opportunity and am glad that I can be a part of supporting people through this experience. Tony and I both enjoy meeting new people and connecting with others and know we’ll enjoy the diversity of people and organizations we’ll be able to meet through this position.

Tony: I echo Denise in that I’m really looking forward to all the people we’ll get to meet through this job and the parts of the country we’ll be able to see. I think I’ll enjoy working with partners, to define ways MCC could be involved, and then matching a potential SALT/YAMENer there.

What has been a challenge for you, adjusting to life in Cambodia?
The two of us are very outdoor and active people. In North America, we run races, play soccer, bike all over town..etc. Life in the busy city of Phnom Penh makes that difficult. We’re being creative though!, and we think we’ll be able to adapt to this change.

What is one thing you miss from home?
Denise: Trail running and cooking
Tony: Mexican food.  And, of course, all of our friends and family!

DOVE helps low-income students in Phnom Penh

Story and Photos by Lisa Bade

Marya takes a rare break from her studies!

Meet Hok Marya, Grade 9 student

“Chum reap sua!  (Hello.)  My name is Marya and I’m 14 years old. I live in Phnom Penh. It’s a big, busy city, the biggest city in my country, Cambodia. I live in a house with my father, my grandma, my aunt and my little sister. I spend most of my time in classes. 9th grade is a difficult year for students here in Cambodia; we must pass a test at the end of the 9th grade year in order to move up to high school. Because of that, we take extra classes to try to prepare for it!”

Marya, like many urban Cambodian students, keeps a rigorous schedule. She continues to describe her day:

“I get up at 5:30 in the morning and brush my teeth and wash my hair and go to an early morning, private class. I go to the market to buy food for my family’s breakfast, next. Sometimes I make bor bor (rice porridge), and sometimes I buy pork and rice from the seller in the market. My class schedule takes all the rest of the day. When I’m not in my public school classes, I go to extra private classes. My English language class at DOVE community center is my last class of the day. It starts at 5:30pm, just after my public school gets out. DOVE has a good English class, it’s affordable for my family, and it’s helping me to prepare for the big exams at the end of the year.

“When my class at DOVE ends, I walk home to be with my family. It feels good to rest and eat dinner and watch TV for a little while. But, I review my lessons again before I go to sleep at night.”

Students of all ages come to study from the surrounding community

Older students get help with the English skill they need for their university classes

Younger ages gain computer literacy

Global Family also helps fund community sports events

Marya is one of many students living in the low-income area around Develop Our Village Economy’s (DOVE) community center where MCC’s Global Family helps to sponsor enrichment classes and sports programs. Although the public school system in Cambodia is supposed to be free, there are many costs to students and their families that make it difficult for less-privileged children to succeed. High stakes tests, at the end of 9th and 12th grade, lead to a system of private classes taught by the underpaid public school teachers. This overlapping system is vulnerable to bribery and corruption, and the private classes that are deemed necessary to pass the tests can put an undue strain on family finances.

DOVE provides a haven of low-cost classes taught by volunteers and full-time DOVE staff, all dedicated to helping the children from the poor community surrounding the center succeed in their education.

DOVE continues to attracts students from early grades through university who need help with computer and English literacy. The classes are full and the students enthusiastic. Recently, DOVE opened the center for a workshop on traffic safety awareness aimed at helping the youth and community make safe choices in the increasingly dangerous Phnom Pen traffic. Global Family funds help DOVE continue to serve the community.

Learn more about the work of DOVE (formerly EFC-KEY) at their website.  Learn about MCC’s Global Family program.

Welcome Noah!

Congratulations to Seiha and her husband, Pisit, on the birth of their second child.  Pisit Rithysak Noah was born at 3:45pm on Saturday, April 20, at 4kg (8.82 pounds) and 53cm (21 inches) long.

Congrats Seiha from everyone at MCC Cambodia!  Welcome Noah!

*Photos by Seiha Rath

ODOV’s Village Banks (video)

View the final video in a series on MCC Cambodia’s partner organization in Mesang, Prey Veng: ODOV (Organization to Develop Our Villages).

Mesang is one of the poorest districts in Prey Veng province, Cambodia.  Without even a paved road, approximately 98% of the population depends on rice cultivation.  Still, the biggest problem people face is lack of food for 3-5 months a year.  And, some suffer all year long.

One part of ODOV’s multifaceted response has been establishing village banks that enable people to not only save money but to borrow money at low interest rates.

View the first video in this series about ODOV’s Demonstration Farm.  The second video is about ODOV’s Sewing Project.

Learn more about ODOV’s work at their website: www.odov.net

Meet MCCer: Chhourn Maly

Maly

Name: Chhourn Maly
Current Hometown: Prey Veng, Cambodia

How long have you worked for MCC? Since 8 October 2012
Job Title: Translator
What do you do?
Work closely with MCC’s partner organizations. Translate office and partner documents from Khmer to English and English to Khmer. Verbal interpretation.
What do you like most about your job? Site visits to villages and verbal interpretation.

What do you like most about living in Cambodia? Food and environment.
Which countries would you like to visit? Singapore and America

Update on Demonstration Farm at ODOV

Story and Photos by Rebecca Standen

The Organization to Develop Our Villages (ODOV) was started by MCC in the early 90’s in response to the need for increased food security and improved livelihoods in the rural rice farming province of Prey Veng, and became a local NGO in 2004. The team of hardworking staff are involved in a variety of community development projects, including the establishment of village banks, vocational training for high school students, and training on sustainable agriculture and climate change adaptation techniques. ODOV also has a demonstration farm with the space and resources to test different agriculture techniques and seeds before sharing them with farmers.

One of the garden plots at ODOV where we are demonstrating crop rotation and growing a variety of crops in a small location, which is useful if you only have a small home garden and want to grow a variety of vegetables year round.

The demonstration farm is where I come in. I am volunteering at ODOV for one year as a part of MCC’s Serving and Learning Together (SALT) program. My role at ODOV is first and foremost as the Demonstration Farm Coordinator, which sounds a lot more impressive than it actually is.

The gardeners already do a fantastic job of planting, growing, and selling vegetables on the farm, all the while demonstrating techniques such as drip irrigation, intercropping, crop rotation, and integrated farming (using crop residue to feed pigs and fish; using fish pond water and pig manure to feed the plants, and so on). Most farmers in the province do not have enough land or financial resources to spare for testing new techniques that might not prove beneficial. This is a valuable community learning centre, used to give hands-on training to farmers, and provides an area for training and development of the staff. My job is to get the ball rolling on some new experimental trials, assisting with data collection and management, and making the place more visitor-friendly.

After discussing the needs of the community members, we decided that the first plant trials would be attempting to grow vegetables that are not currently produced in Mesang. These vegetables could earn a lot of profit for farmers by selling them at the market, as well as providing more variety and nutrition in their daily diet. Poor farming families (around 98% of the population of the province) have a diet that consists mainly of rice and fish. (For that matter, even the not-so-poor families eat an awful lot of rice and fish.) The lack of variety and vegetables in their diet is in part due to low availability of vegetables in the market. Even when vegetables are available, they are imported from other provinces or neighbouring Vietnam and are too expensive for most families to afford on a regular basis.

ODOV helps poor and vulnerable farming families to establish home gardens. Farmers want to be able to grow a variety of nutritious vegetables for household consumption, selling the surplus at the market for additional income. The demonstration farm allows us to test new techniques and vegetables before sharing this information with farmers who don’t have the extra land area or financial resources to risk experimenting with untested varieties or methods.

Ming Uk Lun helped me plant garlic from cloves we purchased at the local market. So far they seem to be growing well.

So far this year, we have planted ginger, three varieties of tomatoes, garlic, shallot, potato, cabbage, and experimented with inter-planting carrot and radishes. Some of these trials have been more successful than others! But hopefully we will soon have success and be able to pass on what we have learned to farmers around the province. I have also been helping with regular data collection; by keeping careful record of all that transpires in the garden, we will be able to objectively compare the results of various trials, learn from our mistakes, and improve our methods.

Of course, there have inevitably been challenges along the way; ants carrying away our tomato seeds, chickens scratching in the seed beds, potatoes rotting instead of sprouting, etc; but what fun is science if everything goes exactly as planned? The gardeners have been a wonderful source of knowledge for me, and I love spending time with them. Though I do have experience in research and experimental trials using plants, my knowledge of vegetable farming in Cambodia was next to nothing before I arrive (OK, it was absolutely nothing before I arrived).

After being here for a bit, I realized that no one was going to invite me out and show me how to do things in the garden. If I wanted to get involved, I had to go outside, awkwardly watch for a while (it is hard to ask specific farming questions after taking language lessons for just one month), and then jump in and start helping! Now that the gardeners are getting to know me, they are happy to teach me farming techniques, and are much quicker to tell me when I do something wrong! Perhaps the greatest evidence of their dedication and patience in helping me learn is that I can now name more of the vegetables in the garden by their Khmer names than by their English names!

My one year term in Cambodia has sadly reached the half-way mark already, but I look forward to the next few months I have to continue serving and learning with the farmers of Cambodia.

This is an unbelievably tiny red ant carrying away a tomato seed down the side of the old tire that is used for a seed bed. I was both distraught that my experiment was being methodically removed, seed by seed, by an army of ants, and amazed by the incredible feat of strength.

Watch a short video about ODOV’s demonstration farm to learn more.