Empower 325 Cambodian Families to be Self Reliant

Executive summary

The report has focused on the progress of activities, problems, solutions, and achievements in terms of chicken and pig raisings, vegetable growing, and saving component of CBOs in eight villages, Damrey Pong commune, Chhaung district, Kratie province, Cambodia.  

Activities and achievements

In the last report there were needed improvements of all CBOs in all villages to have a better way of functioning. In response, in Brahout village, the Chicken group, Fish group, and Vegetable group were restructured to become only one Group with only three elected committee members and 23 members (in total 26 people, 12 women), called a Self Help Group. The committee members were Mr. Sun Sokchea, group coordinator, Mr. Thean Mao, group representative 1, and Mrs. Than Soklin, group representative 2. All new committee members have committed to work harder in order to improve the livelihood conditions for their members. All group members were happy to change from three groups to become only one which they expect to have better management and let them more time to do their work. According to the proposal of the new group, the project team has approved to release a USD 200 grant for supporting the saving component of this brand new group.    

Chicken raising activities of the Self Help Group (SHG) in Kroach village were similar to the previous report in terms of delayed construction of fences around chicken houses as they have not yet finished harvesting cassava. However, on average 3 chickens were eaten per household per month and 2 chickens were sold per month. For one case, Mr. Teng Vanny, 50 years old, a group member of the SHG in Kroach village, said that his family ate 16 chickens and sold 11 chickens which allowed them to earn an amount of 198,000 riels ($49.5). Pig raising activities were going well with 10 households conducting the activity, but two other households decided not to raise pigs due to the lack of water for the pig production. In terms of vegetable growing, most of the households produced vegetables for their own consumption only.

Chicken raising and vegetable growing group members in other villages were quite similar to Kroch village. However, few members could have a vegetable production not only for their own consumption but also for earning a surplus income. As a good example, Mrs. Soy Sophat produced vegetables to support her four family’s members with 15 kg per month and at the same time she earned an income of 100,000 Riels per month. Through following up the chicken and pig raising activities of group members, it was decided that the improvements needed are mainly on feeding and vaccination.

The saving components of the Kroach village group showed that the group is doing much better in terms of making loans and repaying them back than other groups in other villages. So restructuring small groups to become SHGs was the right solution and will be needed to be done in other villages.

Links:

• http://www.crdt.org.kh/

Cambodian Rural Development Team (CRDT)                                                                  GlobalGiving

Report for the “Empower 325 Cambodian Families to be Self Reliant” Project

August 01 –October 31, 2012

Executive summary

The main project activities for August to October were: providing trainings on enhancing capacity on pig and chicken raising techniques to the CBO of Kroach village and following up livelihood activities and saving components of all CBOs in eight villages, Damrey Pong commune, Chhlaung district, Kratie province, Cambodia.

Activities and achievements

After having integrated the fish, chicken and vegetable groups into one Self Help Group with 19 members in Kroach village, it has been found that the group was well functioning. It has regular monthly meeting and runs saving activities. The total of the SHG members has increased from 19 to 22. In addition after the capacity of group members on chicken and pig raising improved through training, 10 members out of 12 who wished to raise pigs have completed pig pen constructions and started to raise pigs while eight out of 10 members who wanted to raise chickens have completed housing pens but fencing around the housing pens made from cassava stems have not yet started as they have not yet harvested cassava.

The follow up showed that, the chicken groups in seven other villages did not function well in terms of having regular meeting, saving activities and productivity. These were due to the fact that most group members were busy with cassava plantation, had low trust in each other, relied on NGO’s facilitation, members did not pay back for loans, and had limited technical knowledge. Thus it led to low chicken productions for food and income.                      

Currently most chicken group members raise chickens for household consumption only. But few of them only had successes in chicken raising. For example, Mr. Uk Saraut, 49 years old, a member of CBO in Brohout village has fed his four family members with 35 chickens per year and generated USD 112 per year as surplus income.

Pig and fish groups raised the same challenges as chicken groups. Vegetable groups in all villages encountered quite the similar situation as the groups above. However, a small number of vegetable group members have sold their vegetable products to their neighborhood for a surplus income. For example, Mr. Kit Tone, 48 years old, a member of CBO in Brohout village, has fed his 9 household members enough vegetable and earned a net income of about USD 100 per year.

In addition, a 52 years old chief of vegetable group in Preykor village, Mrs. Soy Sophat, said that her family with 4 household members had enough vegetable to eat the whole year. Moreover, she earns 80,000 riels (USD 20) per year. Due to this low income she plans to increase it by selling vegetables during next year.

As most work of the groups was not very active, it led to a weak financial management in terms of recording loans and interests. Some of the groups suggested having further capacity building on administration and financial management.  

Overall most CBOs were not quite active due for the main part to busy group members with cassava growing, less team spirit among the members in managing finance and paying loan back late and some members had limited will to pay back loan to their groups, limited agricultural skills and still having dependency on facilitation from NGOs. Therefore, it is important to continue to build further understanding about benefit of participation and team spirit among group members, provide further training on agricultural skills as well as administration and financial management, and follow up more frequently to CBOs members by project teams in order to make them become independent on managing groups to improve their sustainable livelihood development.        

Links:

• CRDT's official website