Background of organization

Children and women Development Center in Cambodia (CWDCC) is a Non-Profit and local Non Governmental Organization, bases in Kampot Province, and was registered with the Ministry of Interior in 2005. CWDCC main approach to development is to empower communities to work collectively to improve the overall wellbeing of community people, focusing particularly on women and children.

Vision

The quality of life for vulnerable groups, especially women and children are improved socially and economically, their rights are being respected, so that they can lives in peace and justice, and manage their own Sustainable natural resources.

Mission

To enhance people’s capacity and right to obtain sufficient food security, improve gender equality, education and health, focusing particularly on women, Children and vulnerable families such as the poor, handicap and PLHA, Furthermore, to support community’s rights to manage their own natural resources. These will be done through collaboration between local government experts and NGOs.

Values

• Equality & Equity
• Gender
• Transparency
• Accountability
• Love and care for children of others ​as ours.

Field of work

Health and Wellbeing of Women and Children
With support from CWDCC to women self-help groups and women healers, women are able to trust each other, and talk about their own health issues. They gain more knowledge about health care for women and personal hygiene. At the same time, the women groups have now been used as vehicle for women to support each other when needed and resolve any problem they face.

Over the next 3 years, however, CWDCC will keep working on women issues, but focusing more on strengthening the capacity of women to understand beyond the basic health care needs, by including the overall improvement of the general wellbeing of women and children.

To address the general well being of women, it is also crucial that, CWDCC will support the capacity building for women build more networks across the villages, and to understand in-depth about other common issues facing women, including gender, domestic violence women trafficking etc.

Gender and Domestic Violence
CWDCC has now expanded its development activities to more villages, especially in the remote communities of Koh Sla, where law reinforcement still weak and security remain a concern for women and children. Furthermore, since the area has now been open up to the outside world, there is an increase in the level of people migration. As result, the links of trafficking rings have also been reported and could pose another grave risk on women and children, many of who are low educated.

In this case, while the work in gender mainstreaming adopted by CWDCC has now been in progress and it leads to a significant decrease in level of domestic violence, it is important that, CWDCC will continue to support women and community to have more capacity and confidence in working with gender issues, and acting collectively to protect the rights of women and children.

Children Education
Children education also remains the area of focus for CWDCC, as this will help to enhance the quality of children education in the rural schools. At the same time, this specific activity is still very relevant to the current government educational policy and development framework for poverty alleviation.

Between 2005 -2010, through support from CWDCC, more poor children are able to attend school, and the issues of children education have often been discussed between the community, school teachers. As result, there is some increase in the level of children enrolment rate and, at the same time, a record on children drop out has also been low, at least, since CWDCC has been working in the areas.

It is expected that, over the course of this strategic period, CWDCC will put more emphasis on empowering parents to engage more effectively and advocate with the local authority and government, to provide more supports, especially in Koh Sla areas, where the school facility still be poorly managed. These supports include school buildings, teachers and school supplies to the local schools.

The ongoing supports to children education will also help to improve community awareness on child rights and child protection. Through community education and child club activities, for instance, children and community people are able to understand more in-depth about children rights and, working collectively to protect children from being abused or trafficking.

Community Food Security
This is not a new focus for CWDCC. Over the past 5 years, the organization has supported the community carry out different development activities, to improve community food security. However, under the current changes of community’s socio-economic and political environment, many poor families are left behind and become more vulnerable.

The current development invasion introduced through land concession for economic development and other investment activities relating to natural resources, has also generated more concerns over the lost of families land, decrease in community natural resources, non-timer forest products and fishery resources. These problems have been further exacerbated by the current climate change, which could impact directly on the level of productions and incomes of the poor farmers and fishers.

Based on the above case, it is essential that, CWDCC will continue to work with the target communities, to minimize the overall impacts of these current issues on the community livelihood, and, to further build the community capacity to cope more effectively with the current socio-economic conditions and climate changes. More inputs also needed, in order to build the capacity of community based organizations such as fishery and forestry, so that, they can work collectively to protect and manage their own natural resources.

Good Governance
Good governance is a key tool supporting a just and equitable development. Good governance will ensure high level transparency, people participation and empowerment. In the context of this strategic planning, CWDCC has expressed a strong commitment to the over healthy functioning of the public services including health care, education and other services managed by the commune councils.

Over the past years, the government, with support from NGOs and other civil society groups, most basic social infrastructures are put in place. Buildings are treated as the major development asset in the views of government institutions. However, this does not lead to the direct improvement of the people’s well being. staff are still not well trained and, in the mean time, they have little motivation to work due to low salary. As result, people, especially in rural areas continue to suffer from the lack of proper support from social services, especially health, education and services from the commune councils. In this case, CWDCC’s approach to governance is to enhance the level of functioning for those public services, and therefore, it will contribute directly to the overall well being of people in rural communities.

Community based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM)
Amid of increasing pressure from macro development initiatives on land concession for economic development, a serious concern has been raised over the capacity of community to challenge and deal with the invasion of such powerful development. As was observed, many communities have been convicted and forced to leave their land, where they have live for generations. This problem, indeed, happen within the target areas of CWDCC, such as in Koh Sla and Community along the coast.

CWDCC supports community’s initiatives to protect and manage their own natural resources. In this process, many training sessions have been organized in the areas of rule of law, human rights, government policies on fishery, forestry, land use, and other policy frameworks relating to community based natural resource management.