The Japanese Embassy is funding here three important activities to help developing the communities in this area. The 1200m long canal is being constructed by villagers, along with a water pumping station for agriculture and a water system on the island of Koh Phdao. This project will not only help local people to improve their livelihood but during the process of digging the canal, the local people will also be able to sell their labor and earn a salary from it. 54 people are involving in the construction of this canal and this allows them to have money to support their daily families’ expenditures. Moreover, these activities also allowed reducing the cases of local migration like in the case of Miss Um Eang’s family. Before the project started, she used to work in another district of Kratie province very far away from her home. But now she decided to find a work in her village, as she heard about the opportunity of this new activity that would make her earn some money. In fact, this couple has earned 100$ from their work achievement during the last 10 days as they both worked hard to complete their duty. She added that the money earned was intended to support her child going to school and for their daily food as well.

By Bin Dim, Projet Manager in Kratie

Mrs. Ngers Chreb is a woman living in Andong Kraleng village who used to be workless when the rice/cassava farming season was over, she has 2 children and an old husband, so she has the responsibility of supporting her family. As a result, her family had only a minimum income before starting to be involved with CRDT’s project in 2012. But since November 2012, she has been a member of the Bonle Beitong Group at Andong Kraleng village.

Nowadays, she always receives advises from the groups’ chief and the project team on how to be a strong vegetable grower. Her family now manages to have enough vegetables for their own consumption and they have been making more money by selling the surplus of vegetables to their neighbors or in the next villages. Currently, she can produce 1.5 to 2 kg a day of vegetables for her family consumption and earn around $40 to $50 a month. Since she has been working with the project, she was able to produce 270kg of vegetables and earned around $240. She said that “I never knew that vegetables could help a poor family like mine so easily. In fact, I don’t need much capital to do this but I receive high benefits from it for my family and our daily meals. I will continue with the project and commit to follow all advises giving by the teachers (project team) and my chief”.

Also, the field staffs always visit her household with the groups’ chief to make sure all beneficiaries are practicing the right technique and to check that there are no pests destroying their plantation. The field staffs also coach all groups’ chiefs for them to be able to follow up with their members.

By Meas Viphou, Project Manager in Mondulkiri

The internal study-tour brought the participants to 2 CBOs in Koh Sneng to see the successful saving activities and pig raising, one CBO in Kham Phann village (Khe) to learn more about vegetable growing and high yields and also how to sell these products at the market and one CBO in Koh Phnov village taught them about saving activities and how to successfully raise chickens with a pen, chicken house, and how to easily find natural chicken food in the area like earth worms.

Finally, all participants enjoyed this trip and felt like they learnt a lot and improved their capacities with all the experience that the communities shared with them. The participants also committed to keep using these techniques at home and help other members from their communities.  Thus, CRDT has witnessed that these internal study tour are a good tool that allow communities to meet other communities, share their successes, failure and doubts and receive help from one another.

By Ngeth Senglay, Project Manager in Stung Treng

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Gartie is one of the 6 villages where CRDT has been implementing the project by cooperating with local authorities such as village, commune and district under a donation by AusAID. In this village the access to water is difficult and the villagers have thus less water for their own consumption. Up to now, 3 hand pump wells were donated by other NGOs but as the village is standing on high land and these hand pump wells are easy to break it makes it difficult to pump the water out. This is why in 2013, CRDT plans to dig a community pond in this village in aiming at supplying enough water to all these villagers to increase their agricultural production (vegetable) and their daily water consumption, it will decrease the difficulties and time of women and children to take the water from the faraway stream. The community pond digging site was selected early April by a key person of the community under support from CRDT, Sre Preah commune and Keo Seima district officials.  The facilitation group conducted one meeting with the representatives of this village to decide that the land for the pond will be open for public use. This decision was taken by the owner of the land and all villagers will collect some money to pay to the owner of land for the use of it. After that, all participants took part in the measurement of the selected land. As a result, 3 owners were selected for their lands and they agreed to contribute with a land in size 50m x 50m for digging the community pond and a land for growing vegetables. This decision shows that the project’s beneficiaries are starting to take this project as their own and also that the local authorities granted all necessary permission relating to the project implementation activities.

By Meas Viphou, Project Manager for Mondulkiri

Chicken raising is one of CRDT programs through which we always encouraged our beneficiaries through trainings, exchange visit, and practical implementation within direct beneficiaries. We have trained communities how to make food for chickens, breed selection, build chicken fence and coops and also particularly provide vaccination instructions to CBO members.

In fact, last month this training was conducted to beneficiaries in Beong Char commune and has been going on this month.  As a positive impact from last month we proudly received the feedback from members who vaccinated their chicken. They are enthusiastic with the good results as fewer chickens died than before the vaccination as well as the animals grow steadily and in good health.

By Bin Dim, Project Manager in Kratie Province

Please find the press release from the Japan Embassy Here

The Ramsar Site is a wetland area full of natural resources that are of tremendous value for our ecosystem. Unfortunately, a lot of these resources present in the forests and rivers and being torn apart by the human activities and the climate change. This is why CRDT is raising awareness to the local population, to have a sustainable use of the natural resources. The local people indeed depend a lot on these natural resources. This is why CRDT implements projects that help people change their livelihood activities to improve their food security and income generation (e.g. livestock, vegetable raising, saving activities) as well as being sustainable for the resources of the Ramsar Site.

On March 19^th, CRDT organized a trip to show one of our donors CEPF as well as our partners WWF, Worldfish Center, CED, CI and Birdlife the progresses in our projects. Thus CRDT organized a homestay in the Ramsar site village of Koh Sneng where the villagers were able to share their traditional music and their sense of warm hospitality.

By Ngeth Senglay, Project Manager in Stung Treng

From March 18th to March 22th, CRDT had a field trip between Stung Treng and Kratie provinces with one of its donor CEPF, to show the progresses of our “Sustainable Development to Support Wise Use and Conservation of the Wetland Ramsar Site in Stung Treng, Cambodia” project.

We had the opportunity both to learn more about the activities of our partners WWF, the WorldFish Center, Birdlife International, International Rivers, CED and to be able to show to our donors the improvements our beneficiaries were able to achieve.

This week allowed us to highlight important issues Cambodia as well as the Mekong River are facing, like the future building of dams on the Mekong that could impact the livelihoods of the Cambodian population as well as the environment (with a decrease in the amount of fishes available) or the illegal activities arming the environment (illegal fishing and logging).

During this trip we had the chance to witness endangered animals that our partner organizations are trying to help and protect like gibbons, Ibis birds and Asian Softshell Turtles, and we went in CRDT and CED beneficiaries’ villages to acknowledge all the improvements happening for the population. CRDT is working on a day-to-day basis to help both the population alleviate from poverty and conserve the environment for the future generation.

We would like to thank our donors CEPF, The Mac Arthur Foundation and the Government of Japan for allowing us to conduct such an important project on the Mekong and we hope to continue this successful partnership in the coming years.

By Coline Ganz, Fundraising and Communication Coordinator

]]> http://www.crdt.org.kh/kratie/field-visit-with-cepf/feed 0 http://www.crdt.org.kh/kratie/mekong-river-dependent-livelihoods http://www.crdt.org.kh/kratie/mekong-river-dependent-livelihoods#comments Fri, 22 Mar 2013 00:07:13 +0000 admin http://www.crdt.org.kh/?p=1473 Continue reading →]]> Rice farming, fishing, raising livestock, riverside gardening, and seasonal wage labor as their primary livelihood activities and source of cash income.

Traditionally, communities cultivated their fields for their own consumption as due to lacking of techniques, seeds and materials and the difficulty to take water to irrigate their fields, they could only grow small quantities of food. Moreover, they hadn’t access to a market as the villages are far away from towns.

Fortunately, since 2006 their situation has improved as many NGOs have been coming to these villages and helping the population, especially CRDT. People’s techniques of vegetables growing were enhanced through providing trainings, materials and seeds were released like river hand pumps, pump water machines… Furthermore, the market value chain and market demand was spreading out within communities. Therefore, communities were then able to produce vegetables for their own consumption as well as to be sold.

Nowadays, the average annual household income derived from the riverside vegetable gardening is around USD 50.00. Riverside vegetable gardening occurs approximately seven months per year, most likely during the river’s low season. The average annual income from vegetable production per household is at least 100,000 – 200,000 riel (USD 25.00 – 50.00), in addition to the vegetables consumed by the household. These households commonly grow pak choy, cabbage, pumpkins, gourde, sugarcane, tomatoes, sweet potato and native root crops, corns, melons, eggplants, cucumbers, herbs, and others. Riverside vegetable gardens are mostly taken care of by women and children although some men give hand from time to time (The Sambor Baseline Survey, Estela Estoria Sept 2010).

By Bin Dim, Project Manager in Kratie Province