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Maddox Jolie Project
(MJP)

CVD/MJP COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION

FIRST QUARTERLY REPORT
JANUARY – MARCH 2005

I. PROJECT MANAGEMENT

1. Village Assessment

From 31 January to 4 February 2005 there has been a 5-day field visit from Ms. Laurence Desvignes and Mr. Voan Sam El to conduct the village assessment in 12 villages in which 9 villages have been implementing community development and education activities since 2004 by CVD/MJP, out of 4 villages that are planned (to be targeted) for 2005. The findings of village assessment have shown as the following:
  1. Community Development Support: In general, most of the villagers who received assistance from the project showed their satisfaction and got involved with project activities where appropriate. They contributed both, their effort and their spirit, to improve their living standards, and helped to disseminate the environment protection information to other villagers within their vicinity. Based on general observation, we noticed that there was a great reduction of numbers of day-to-day survival activities that rely on entering the protected forest. Though, the project will continue to provide additional assistance to the communities around the park (villages) that have shown their participation in the protection effort.

  2. Education Activities: Environmental education and awareness is a very important part of conservation activities, and it is recognized positively by villagers and local authorities as it helps people understand the values of the protected area and the negative effects of logging and poaching. Within these findings, there were also some constructive comments from stakeholders that the education activities should have closer integration with other community development activities existing in each village. In addition, the training and dissemination should include environmental and forestry law so that the recipients benefit more while attending the training course.

   
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2. MJP Integration Workshop

CVD/MJP conducted a 2-day workshop on "MJP Integration" under the facilitation of Ms. Laurence Desvignes (Angelina Jolie's representative), Mr. Mounh Sarath (CVD director) and Mr. Voan Sam El (CVD/MJP manager) held on 7-8 February 2005, with the participations of all CVD/MJP staff, representatives of Border Policemen, Rangers, Military Police (these personnel are hired by MJP), Directors of Department of Environment of Battambang and Pailin and representatives of BTB Department of Forestry. The main purpose of the workshop was to determine the best ways of integration between MJP's components, to design an approach to ensure that integration will take place and the way to improve cooperation with local authorities and government institutions.

The outcomes of the workshop met the expectations, with the agreement to restructure CVD/MJP components and to set up a closer cooperation with Law Enforcement unit (Military Police, Border Patrol Police) and local authorities. Commencement from this stage onward, the new approach of the MJP-CD component which is executed by CVD will follow the set strategy and operation standard. According to the recommendation made by workshop participants, CVD will encourage/motivate more involvement of the local institutions in carrying out the project activities with much closer cooperation.


3. Meeting with other relevant NGOs

Laurence and Sam El met with Mlup Beitong, WCS, FFI and DNCP who are working with environment programs in Cambodia, to discuss environmental issues and seek to understand about their successful programs. At those meetings the project representatives also looked for opinions regarding Bio-gas and its advantages. As part of the natural resource management and effective mobilization of natural resources, CVD/MJP plans to establish Bio-gas for certain families in the targeted area, in order to reduce the use of firewood and/or to avoid the cutting down of more trees for fuel.


4. MJP Strategic Planning Workshop

Once again, CVD/MJP organized a Strategic Planning workshop with participation of all CVD/MJP staff in order to achieve the overall goal of MJP "to protect the wildlife, promote eco-system and watershed conservation, and establish a sustainable management of the Samlaut Protected Area".
The 4 Specific Objectives were determined for 2005 as:

  1. Specific Objective 1: Population and authorities at local/provincial levels are aware of the environment value and law, as well as the PA's (Protected Area) boundaries, and are involved in protecting the area.

  2. Specific Objective 2: Living standards of people living around the PA are improved.

  3. Specific Objective 3: Integration between MJP components is effectively implemented.

  4. Specific Objective 4: Cooperation with authorities and other institutions is improved.
The strategic planning workshop also identified activities and indicators for each specific objective.
With the above objectives, the Strategic Workshop has fully incorporated each individual section to be discussed and identify appropriate program planning to respond to their needs. A plan of action was produced for each and all were put into implementation activities at a field level successfully.

   
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5. CVD/MJP Project Restructure

This CVD/MJP project was originally designed it operation three different components:

  1. Government Liaison: This component consisted of one staff member, whose main roles are mainly to build and communicate with local government offices/departments at filed operational level.

  2. Community Development: This component employed four staff members, of which 2 are responsible for Samlaut and the other 2 for Pailin municipality area. Their main roles were to respond to socio-economical development and long term sustainable community support.

  3. Environment awareness/education: This component comprised of 3 field staff members who are responsible for educating and arranging for formal and informal environmental education.

In order to meet the overall project strategy for 2005, and as well as for better integration with other MJP components, the project restructured its components and reformed the community development support. From this time onward, the CVD/MJP community support team will consist of two teams (each team has one monitoring officer, one community development worker and one community environment educator). The teams have their bases in Samlaut and Pailin for implementing community development and environment education activities in the target villages. The project established a new Mobile Environment Education Team (MEET) unit where a vehicle (4x4 WheelDrive), fully equipped with education materials, will move around to villages to conduct training sessions on environmental issues. The training sessions take place at schools and military bases around the protected area, where appropriate.


6. Project Budget Plan and Revision

In November 2004 CVD/MJP submitted its annual budget for 2005 to Angelina (the donor) to review and approve. Since the project was restructured, its budget had also been revised to meet the actual requirement and plan. The total sum was slightly different from the original amount.


II. PROJECT FIELD ACTIVITIES

A. Samlaut Community Development and Support (CDS)
  1. Community Support (CS)
    The Samlaut community development support targets 10 villages (out of 6 old targeted villages) in the 3 communes where they are located near the protected area. Within these 10 villages, the team conducted village needs assessment for setting up responds, accordingly. The outcomes in each village as shown below:

    No. Village Families Population Occupations
    Farmer Logger Hunter Fruit Charcoal
    1  Ampep 69 402 69 12 0 0 0
    2  Tanon 79 357 79 8 0 0 0
    3  Kg. Touk 107 486 107 8 4 0 0
    4  Sung I 167 788 167 11 0 0 5
    5  Sung II 106 526 106 6 0 0 0
    6  Srereach 70 344 70 14 0 1 0
    7  Chamkarchek 119 550 119 15 0 0 0
    8  Chorkrokar 213 995 231 25 2 2 0
    9  Sreandong 92 430 92 10 0 0 0
    10  O'chrap 162 870 162 19 0 0 0
    Total 1,184 5,748 1,184 128 6 3 5

    After completing the needs assessment in each village, the team formed up 89 families into 11 Self-Help-Groups (SHGs) for community development support.

  2. Community Environment Education (CEE)
    1. The CEE gathered 60 local authorities (village and commune leaders) to conduct a local community workshop (local capacity building on environment). These selected persons will be represented as project environmental trainers within their communities.

    2. The CEE also visited 8 schools (grade 1-6) with a total student number of 1,639 to provide environment awareness education.

    3. The CEE team members conducted environment awareness/education sessions for 98 persons who live in 7 villages out of 10 villages above and 201 persons who live in old 4 targeted villages of Samlaut, Anlong Pouk, Kandal and Kantout, while setting SHGs and distributing assistances.


       
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B. Pailin Community Support (CS)

The same as Samlaut team, this team selected 10 villages, that are situated in the vicinity of the protected area, for community development support. Below are the outcomes of village needs assessment conducted in these 10 villages:

No. Village Families Population Occupations
Farmer Logger Hunter Fruit Charcoal Gemminer
1  Klong 130 644            
2  Krochap Krom 238 1,122            
3  Krochap Luer 87 345            
4  Parngrolem 40 188            
5  O'chra Leur 68 265 20 20 0 0 2 0
6  Rong Chack 53 247 33 11 0 0 0 17
7  Bortangsu 162 762            
8  Borhuy Cherng 93 484 26 0 17 5 0 5
9  O'chra 70 338            
10  Toul Keo 44 210 36 14 0 0 11 11
Total 985 4,625            

  1. In these villages the team members set up 126 families into 14 SHGs (each group comprises of 9 families in average) in 4 villages of Borhuy Cheng, Rong Chack, O'chra Luer and Toul Keo.

  2. Krochap Luer villagers constructed a wooden primary school (8m x 12m) for their children as temporary school, contributing their labors and small financial costs. The villagers could not complete this construction due to lack of resources. Therefore, they requested support from MJP to build the roof and the walls. The project considered to support them by supplying zincs and fibro-cements where appropriate. This project contribution is aiming at stopping the villagers from collecting more wood in the protected area for this construction, and to motivate the social strengthening of the community where they need urgent support.

C. Pailin Community Environment Education (CEE)
  1. The CEE gathered 56 local authorities (village and commune leaders) to conduct a local community workshop (local capacity building on environment). These selected persons will function as project environmental trainers within their communities.

  2. The CEE also targeted 8 schools (grade 1-6) with the total students of 2,015 to provide environment awareness educations this year.

  3. In this period, the team members provided community environment awareness educations to 79 persons who reside in 4 of the 10 villages.

D. Mobile Environment Education Team (MEET)

The project establishes a mobile environment education team to cover the military bases and schools located in the vicinity of the Protected Area and the rest of the villages that are not targeted by community environment education of the community development team.

Below are the target villages, military bases, schools and local authorities that were selected for conducting environment education activities this year.
  1. Target villages and populations for Samlaut
    Commune No. Village Families Population Age over 18 years
    Total Female    
    Meanchay 1  Kamchat 77 391 190 186 100
    2  Sre Chipow 127 620 307 300 151
    3  Sre Sdao 71 315 169 158 84
    Sung 4  Kanchang 122 587 289 250 109
    Tasahn 5  Tasang Tbong 77 377 181 182 87
    6  Tasang Cheng 128 657 315 309 161
    7  Prey Rumchek 132 664 345 313 160
    8  Dontrek 137 661 361 355 197
    Total 871 4,272 2,157 2,053 1,049

  2. Target villages and populations for Pailin
    Commune No. Village Families Population Age over 18 years
    Total Female    
    O'tavao 1  Kon Phnom 57 757 142 150 69
    2  Outavao 95 445 214 218 109
    3  Kbal Prelean 148 308 373 392 188
    4  Prey Mongkle 62 336 110 134 69
    5  O'Khting 30 150 82 99 41
    6  Phnom Dorbang 157 672 332 111 97
    Toul Lovea 7  Outaouk Kroum 439 1339 822 719 337
    8  Ou Pourt 85 448 295 120 111
    9  Ou Chrakeit 57 248 123 120 58
    10  Ou Chrakormal 61 290 178 142 75
    11  Toul Lovea 98 397 230 196 99
    12  Toul Nimith 77 387 178 165 87
    13  Toul Salour 79 392 201 189 99
    14  ChumKar coffee 93 419 210 209 109
    Boryaka 15  Ou Sngout 58 291 140 144 64
    16  Bor Yakha 60 335 175 151 73
    Total 1,656 7,214 3,805 3,259 1,685

  3. Target schools
    No. School Grade 1 Grade 2 Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6 High school
    1  Sor Heng Oh Tavoa 79 71 46 56 35 71 0
    2  B.P Oh Tavao 70 23 0 36 0 0 0
    3  Rattank Sophoeun 241 253 170 298 230 156 0
    4  Oh Chrakandal 83 82 81 109 112 80 0
    5  Toul Lovea 83 57 82 49 72 53 0
    6  Mondul Koma 6 7 13 11 11 14 38
    7  Oh Tapok 184 144 204 211 188 215 0
    8  Santipheap 28 30 46 37 30 29 200
    9  Akphiwat 130 103 81 75 53 76 0
    10  Prey Rumcheck 90 93 59 58 34 22 0
    11  Tasanh Tbong 46 24 0 30 22 0 0
    12  Meanchey 116 44 49 38 30 25 0
    13  Chrapkrohorm 103 85 45 39 36 23 0
    Total 1,259 1,016 876 1,047 853 764 238

  4. Target military bases
    No. Military Base's Name Location Number of Military
    1  Headquarter of brigade 502  Spean Veng 62
    2  Headquarter of Patrol Team 2  Chrork 400 38
    3  Headquarter of Patrol Team 5  Tasanh Tbong 30
    4  Samlaut District Military Base  O'tatem 60
    5  Headquarter of Border Protection 310  Spean Veng 25
    6  Headquarter of Border Protection 823  Road to Chrork 400 20
    7  Headquarter of Border Protection 522  O'riangkhen 325
    8  Headquarter base in Pailin  Phnom Yat 77
    9  Headquarter 1  Pangrolem 175
    10  District Operational Military Base  Pangrolem 164
    11  Military Border Protection  Bortangsu 20
    Total 996

  5. Target local authorities
    The MEET also selected 82 local authorities (village and commune leaders) for conducting local community workshop (local capacity building on environment) who will be role as trainers within their communities.

E. Education Activities

Over the first quarter, the environment education team conducted training to people as shown below:

Type of Activities Conducted Number Audience Audience Number
M F Child Total
 Education session in village 7 villages Adults 57 44 0 101
 Education session in school 5 schools Children 0 0 196 196
Total 57 44 196 297



III. CONCLUSION

Throughout the first quarter, the project changed its strategies for a better integration with other MJP components. This new approach is expected to meet a closer cooperation with local authorities and local government institutions. The changes included were project operational restructure, moving offices to be closer to the ranger's station and establishing a reporting form to report any case to each other component.

There are 20 new targeted villages (10 villages in Samlaut and 10 villages in Pailin), excluding 10 old target villages that were targeted in 2004. There are 26 new targeted villages selected for environment education. The two teams were designed to conduct a quick response so that they can support to the law enforcement unit whenever needed (as additional task).


IV. PLAN FOR THE NEXT QUARTER

  1. Project field staff to complete village needs assessment in all target villages.

  2. All field staff to be trained on GPS and camera trap skills

  3. Exchange visit to other NGOs, who have environment activities, will be arranged for relevant staff.

  4. Project field staff continues to provide educations to target people and also plans to set up target people into SHGs before distributing assistance.


Prepared by Voan Sam El
MJP Community Development and Support Manager


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