Anniversary wish to empower more women in Cambodia

Dear supporters,

The fundraising campaign for our Anniversary Fund has now closed. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for supporting and contributing to our efforts to extend our reach into the nearby villages.

Back in December 2015, we ran a number of focus group discussions with the relevant Commune Chiefs and village residents. We collected some informative qualitative data, confirming our suspicion that domestic violence is a great challenge for many households. We also found that many mothers were interested to know more about parenting (how to protect children from alcohol and/or drug abuse and understanding about child development and attachment).

However, WRC is still new to the surveying processes and we came to the conclusion that we needed more quantitative data to ensure we create the most relevant workshop material. And so, we will be returning to the villages this month to run a baseline survey. This approach will also help us to better understand the effectiveness of our workshops and by using numbers and percentages, we will be able to better track the progress of the participants throughout the course of the year.

Meanwhile, we have also been surveying secondary students to determine their needs. In conjunction with our workshops in the villages, we will be running regular workshop sessions at our partner secondary schools. We ran these workshops last year and so far, they have proven to be very successful. We ran the surveys to ensure our school workshops were still relevant and we wanted the students to know that their concerns were valid.

The key concerns identified from these surveys were drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, why girls drop out of school, trafficking and health. With our goal to increase gender equality in Cambodia, we will continue our school workshops throughout the year, and although we will aim to cover all the primary concerns raised by the students, the topics will have an overall focus on gender-based violence prevention and deconstructing gender roles.

As you can see, we don’t aim to tick a box with our outreach program. We really want to empower women and her family in the best and most sustainable way possible. We don’t plan on empowering women and girls for one day, but for their whole life.

We want to ensure that mothers, aunts, sisters and friends pass on the best practices to the next generations, so that they can finally break the vicious cycle that often comes with poverty, violence and gender inequality.

So thank you once again, because without the support you have so kindly shown us, we would not be able to do the work we are doing and reach as many women and girls.

It has been a privilege working on this campaign. I have learned so much about the tenacity of the women that work at WRC and have been delighted to share their progress and goals with you.

I am hopeful that one day WRC’s vision of a fair and safe Cambodian society with equal rights for all will come true. Cambodian women and girls deserve to be empowered, educated, respected and, above all, able to make well-informed decisions about their lives.

Please continue to support WRC by donating to their general fundraising page and by sharing their work with your family, friends and colleagues.