SKIP Newcastle - Cambodia

SKIP Newcastle will be piloting a new project this summer in the province of Kampong Thom, Cambodia. Working with our partner CoDeC (Cooperation for Development of Cambodia) we aim to establish simple interventions based on health promotion, education and youth groups for the children of this community.

History

During August 2008, volunteers from SKIP Newcastle embarked on a research trip to Cambodia to investigate the need for a SKIP project while our project in Sri Lanka was suspended due to safety concerns. Cambodia has had long standing political and economic problems, due to civil war and mass genocides, with the regime of the Khmer Rouge. Although currently politically stable, the country has suffered greatly from its past. Alongside poverty, children suffer greatly from problems such as lack of education, difficulty in access to healthcare, hunger and human trafficking, especially in rural areas. SKIP Newcastle has chosen to work in a rural area in the province of Kampong Thom, situated between Siam Reap and Phnom Penh.

During this visit we identified CoDeC as a partner that is based in Kampong Thom Province. Their vision is “that Cambodia is a society where all the people can have sustainable livelihoods and can improve their lives.” Their mission is to “To increase the capacity of the poor to improve their livelihoods.”

CoDeC’s main program is the Livelihood program, which aims to increase the capacity of the poorest people to generate income. They chiefly run this by setting up and encouraging the membership of the Affinity Group Development program.

• Members save money each month and credit is provided to them at low interest rates
• They can borrow money for business needs
• They receive training in specific skills.

Improving health and sanitation is also a priority and they ensure that health promotion is incorporated into all of their activities, particularly focusing on HIV education.

What will our project do?

We will be working alongside CoDeC, targeting children to help with issues affecting the whole community. Planned interventions ill include English teaching, health education, youth club, and just being there to help. SKIP can also make contacts to help offer advice on vocational training within the community. We will continue to keep the children engaged in the activities we have encouraged them to participate in. These activities are designed to improve the children’s quality of life. The activities stimulate the children’s ability to try new ideas and formulate new ones. Daily evaluations will be carried out by the volunteers, and we will have regular meetings with CoDeC to check our progress. The children and their families will also have an opportunity to feedback and amend the project.

What are our goals?

Due to the difficulties SKIP Newcastle has faced with our previous project, we feel at present it is best that our goals are simple and two-fold:

• To set up a sustainable project in Cambodia, with many links within the community
• To help handover work done in Sri Lanka, either back to community or to another NGO.

How do we raise money?

This year we have had many successful fundraising events including cake sales, film showings and a curry and quiz night.

Coming up: Cambodia night, bucket collections and bag packing.

Contact us

For more information about SKIP Newcastle or our new project in Cambodia please contact us at skipnewcastle@googlemail.com