Our Programs
GATE : RICE SUPPORT PROGRAM : THE WELLS PROJECT : LOTUS PEDALS
GIRLS ACCESS TO EDUCATION
GATE is designed to ensure the education of impoverished Cambodian girls at-risk of being trafficked into the commercial sex industry or child labour. The GATE objective is to enhance the life options of at-risk girls and their families and to reduce their vulnerability to violence and trafficking.
GATE is a collaborative effort between Lotus Outreach and CWCC, a local grassroots organisation founded to provide services to and engage in advocacy efforts for women and girls who either have been or are currently at-risk of becoming victims of violence. Consistent with Lotus Outreach methods and strategic goals, the GATE project is administered by our local partner. Our Executive Director of Field Operations, Glenn Fawcett, proposed the GATE program to CWCC, and regularly participates in program monitoring and evaluation.
The goal of this collaboration is to promote equal access to education for Cambodian girls and prevent exploitation in vulnerable communities. The objectives of the program are three-fold:
Objective 1: Provide a safe environment and access to education for impoverished, exploited and at-risk girls in Cambodia.
Implementation activities:
- Establish Local Education Working Groups (LEWGs) as the backbone of the GATE program.
- Identify vulnerable, at-risk girls in addition to already victimised girls with the help of representatives from commune councils, heads of schools, women teachers and members of the parent committee.
- Supply financial support and educational materials to disadvantaged girls in targeted districts based on their vulnerability to violence.
- Monitor the academic performance of targeted at-risk girls.
Objective 2: Improve societal attitudes toward girls‘ education and violence against women (VAW) through broad-based advocacy efforts
Implementation activities:
- Conduct baseline surveys in the target districts to assess local attitudes toward education.
- Organise enrolment and ―Literacy Day‖ campaigns to promote girls‘ education and its long-term benefits.
- Convene public forums and debates on girls' education issues.
- Host community education sessions on human trafficking and domestic violence for authorities and the general public.
Objective 3: Enhance partner capacity
Implementation activities:
- Conduct training and facilitate seminars for CWCC staff to enhance reporting capacity and data-driven project evaluation.
- Assist in program development, monitoring and improvement.
- Support the partner organisation in utilising new reporting formats.
Lotus Outreach and our local partner, CWCC, have conducted surveys in the target communities, established cooperative local education working groups charged with selecting and supporting project participants, and continue to provide school-related costs for participants. These funds cover teachers' fees, uniforms, healthcare, accommodation, transportation, textbooks, school supplies, and supplementary classes.
RICE SUPPORT PROGRAM
The provision of rice support not only ensures the girls will go to class with nourished minds and bodies, but greatly reduces both the real and opportunity costs for families that send their daughters to school. For families living below the sustenance level, sending children to school is a luxury they simply can‘t afford. Impoverished families are not only unable to afford the indirect costs of education, such as uniforms, fees and transportation, but require their daughters to work to help meet basic needs. The most unfortunate of these working children will find themselves trafficked into organised begging rings, bonded labour or Southeast Asia‘s notorious commercial sex trade.
Lotus Outreach Australia supports a program that provides 25-50 kilograms of rice each month during the 2010/2011 school year to the families of 50 girls who rank among the poorest 10% of GATE scholarship recipients in Siem Reap and Banteay Meanchey. In addition, scholarship recipients who are on the verge of dropping out of school because of extreme poverty will be offered rice support as an incentive for staying enrolled.
Rice support is delivered each month by the Local Education Working Groups (LEWGs) assembled as the backbone of the GATE scholarship program. These groups consist of volunteer community members and stakeholders such as local government officials, teachers, principals and parents and ensure local ownership and effective day-to-day monitoring of the program. Rice is distributed once per month throughout the year on the condition that the girls remain enrolled in school and actively attend classes.
THE WELLS PROJECT
Problem
With a per capita income of $731, Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the world. The lack of safe drinking water poses a serious threat to the lives of millions in Cambodia. Rapid growth of population and climate change have worsened the water shortage crisis every year. Young children are more vulnerable than any other age group to the ill effects of unsafe water, insufficient quantities of water, poor sanitation and lack of hygiene. According to CDHS 2005 unsafe drinking water increases the risk of diarrhea by about 25% which is the main cause of infant and young child mortality.
Phnom Kravanh, Pursat: According to PDIP[3] 2008-2010, 69.90% of Phnom Kravanh population drink water from unsafe water source in dry season. In addition, in some areas the villagers have to walk at least one kilometer on daily basis to collect water, which is deemed unsafe for consumption. Some areas where there are no water sources, the villagers have to buy water for daily uses which cost at least US$10 up to US$30 per month depending on family size. This expenditure is a heavy burden on the families and especially dangerous for young children, who are often taken out of school and sent to work across the border to Thailand or Malaysia to cover such expenses. Such children face a high risk of being trafficked, raped or otherwise abused and exploited.
Populations in these remote village areas are poorly educated about hygiene and its relationship to health and face further economic difficulties when having to bear medical costs due to dehydration and water-borne illness.
Solution
Lotus Outreach Australia has funded 6 wells in Phnom Kravnh, Pursat province. This will secure clean and easy to access water that will deeply impact on the quality of life, family economics, children’s health and education in the target villages.
Beneficiaries
The well project will benefit about 1,600 villagers (875 females and 843 children under 18 years old) from 7 rural villages.
Our partner in this project is COCD.
LOTUS PEDALS
Cambodia in particular is falling behind in the area of girls’ education. Only 23% of rural Cambodian girls attend secondary school with the rate dropping to a mere 6% for the nation’s poorest girls. One of the key barriers to girls’ education in Cambodia is a lack of transportation. Expanding upon a comprehensive scholarship initiative, Lotus Outreach is funding bicycles and repair kits ($60) to ensure hundreds of girls can get to school each day. “Lotus Pedals” provides heavy-terrain bicycles to hundreds of impoverished and exploited Cambodian girls who would not otherwise be able to traverse the considerable distance to the nearest schoolhouse—often over five miles (8km) each way. “It is amazing to think that something most of us consider a recreational device can mean the difference between whether or not a girl in Cambodia can achieve the promise of education,” says Erika Keaveney, LO’s Executive Director. “We know that there are hundreds of girls literally sitting at home right now instead of going to school for want of a simple bike.”
Please join Lotus Outreach Australia in fulfilling its target of providing 20 new bikes each year for girls going to school.