Background

Khan Mean Chey Situation

TASK have been working in one of the poorest area calls Mean Chey district which has population up to 200,000.These people majority is Khmer, some are Vietnamese and Charm. They are speaking their own languages. Mean Chey district located south urban area of Phnom Penh. It is 70% lower land divided in two parts by BASAC river. Many people settling their houses along river bank and living with very low hygiene such as using unclean water, low quality of food & lack of access to heath care..etc..

TASK (Formerly Servants to Asia’s Urban Poor) in now continuing to implement 8 projects in aiming to respond to the needs of people suffering poverty & diseases. our work is to serve these people and change their lives following our vision and mission statements.

The royal government of Cambodia is planning to expand the capital city by another 20km by the year 2010. As part of this plan, a big lake in Niroth has been filled up to build a new stadium. It affects people living around the lake because it used to provide them with income from fishing and farming. The land price is dramatically increasing; much new building is taking place. The poor people have to pay more money for accommodation as the rent price is going up as well.

TASK Management reports

TASK has become localized for almost two years since 01 Oct 2004. All management structure is 100% led by Cambodian staff. There are more and more blessings from God project have expanded, funding has increased more staff since TASK has become localize.

The management is now led by two Co-directors & one Deputy director and supported by the management team. At least one representative was chosen from each project to be a member of the management committee. All these position are elected not appointed or nominated.

By The constitution states that every three years one of the Co-directors has to step down automatically and remain one. This situation a new one must be chosen from the team by election to replace the one who step down.

The management committee also has rotating roles. There will be a new election taking place every two years to select new members of the management committee.

TASK now is preparing the election for new management committee which will be scheduling in late Oct 2006. and the Co-directors & deputy director will also be re-elected in Oct 2007.

The reasons TASK formed structure this is to mobilize and encourage young staff to gain experience area learn how to lead TASK Organization, and allow them to share their leadership within TASK.

Overall Objective

Our Vision (The CSD Project):

1. We want to see the poor and their communities in Khan Mean Chey having good health through improved personal and community hygiene.
2. We want to see every family and every child have knowledge about and access to decent sanitation, and every school providing safe, clean space for children to play.
3. We want to see the poor and their communities transformed by experiencing the best possible health (physical, social, mental, spiritual).

Our Mission (The CSD Project):

1. We will build latrines in cooperation with poor communities.
2. We will provide good health education, especially about latrine use (cleaning and maintenance) and hand washing (with soap).
3. We will help communities develop themselves by providing the health knowledge and skills that address the causes of poverty.
4. We will assist the children of Khan Main Chey to grow and develop by assuring that every school in the district has adequately drained land and a children’s playground.
5. We will build good relationships with the poor, the community, and all stakeholders.
6. We will network and partner with all groups that can help provide training, skills or resources to help improve the health and sanitation of the poor.

Our work is an integrated approach to health and development, and includes work in

• Child Health: Community nutrition; children with disability; immunization; children and youth at risk from HIV/AIDS and from drug abuse; health education, sanitation and playgrounds in schools.
• Women’s Health: Savings cooperatives; birth spacing and antenatal care; commercial sex worker outreach; traditional birth attendant training.
• Public Health: grass roots community sanitation and drainage; HIV/AIDS education and home care; support to government TB program; cooperation with Health centre and District authorities for special campaigns - e.g. Dengue Fever, emergency relief.

Throughout the community SERVANTS-TASK has built up an extensive network of community relationships (e.g. Women’s Association members, Group Leaders etc) and is committed to mobilizing and nurturing community volunteers and community workers to assist in the development of their own localities (presently over 100 such community workers work alongside us).

It should be emphasized that all of the health and development projects are interrelated, work in cooperation with one another and cross-refer to one another. This allows an integrated approach to addressing the communities health and development needs.

C S D Project Background

Community Sanitation and Development Background (C S D)

a - CSD Project had its origins in May, 2000, Under Servants to Asia Urban Poor following research in Prek Pra Commune, Meanchey District. The majority of these people were poor families not able to build toilets to use. So they passed stool near theirs houses or in ponds and in rivers. The majority were Khmer people with significant minority population of Viet Names and Cham (or Moslem) whose houses were along side the river, ponds or swampy area.

b - CSD made the plan to reduce disease and poverty in the Community by helping to build family toilets for poor families and give health education teaching and providing skill training about how to build and maintain. These toilets poor people to help and support themselves. This enables growing in dignity and better health.

c - before building of a family latrine, C S D meets with UNCHS (United Nation Community Heath Sanitation Organization based Phnom Penh, adopting their toilet model.

d- The Community participates in the planning and contraction of their toilets and contribute $ 10 per toilet, as well as their labor.

Background of family toilet project area

Description in Thnot Chrum Village

Thnot Chrum was the poorest Village and was located in the lowest areas BoeungTumpun Commune, Mean Chey District. In the raining season, flood water flowed heavily and flooded the area for 2-3 days at a time. The population was living this water was very unsanitary.

TASK Community Sanitation Development project found that people had many needs for health assistant such as rainage, toilet, pure water and hygiene knowledge .

During the observation and discussion with the head of the village, they request to TASK to help develop their area with drainage and family toilets as well.

Statistics

Thnot Thrum has population 9942 persons, 1721 families, 1533 houses and 18 groups.

Community request family toilets amounting to 30 toilets for poor families, there had following this, TASK contacted the local authority and checked for other places with similar needs and made a Baseline and follow-up questionnaire in surrounding villages.

Situation and Activity Family Toilet

Currently we help to provide families toilets to poor families amounting to 12 toilets in month October, 2006 to March, 2007.

After we build the families toilet, we chose one family to interview such: Chan Rom, a female ages 65 years old, She is head of the family of 12 persons living in Thnot Chrum village . She told us last year, that her family lacked toilet, some times passing stools near her house or in plastic bags thrown into ponds and rivers. but now they told us that they can easy use her toilets and are experiencing less Diarrhea, Dysentery, worms and other diseases, when saves money their not buying medicines, they have good health in their families and experience greater happiness.

Number of poor families receiving toilets

Available for download:

Budget of a family toilet and a financial report of the project.

Picture of completed toilets

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 19th, 2007 at 12:19 pm and is filed under General, Cambodia project. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.