So, what’s been happening in the world of ConCERT since we started in November? The answer is plenty!
- 22 NGO members
- more than 35 business members
- more than 500 people from every continent have visited or contacted ConCERT
- thousands of leaflets and other pieces of information distributed
- hundreds of acts of support including some spectacular success stories
- rapidly expanding network
- new ConCERT Facebook page
- development of additional services for business and NGO members
In addition to the 500+ people who have visited, phoned, or emailed, and who have taken away leaflets, been introduced to our members, volunteered, or donated, we have been very active in trying to support our organisations, and in promoting Siem Reap in general. Click on the headings below to find out more…
Volunteers and support
New Staff
New web pages
Our growing network
Interactive DVDs in Khmer
Development of a new English Curriculum for schools and orphanages
ConCERT Facebook page
Support for ConCERT and future plans
Volunteers and support
We have had some excellent volunteers and support over the last year and ConCERT couldn’t have made its considerable progress without their skills and enthusiasm:
Rosie Head’s generosity in sharing the decisive and surprising results of her research into responsible tourism in Siem Reap last year provided the catalyst for founding ConCERT. Jo and Thomas from angkorhotels.com, Michael and Vanny at the Singing Tree Café, Weng at Angkor Palace, and Pascal from la Residence have been staunch supporters from the start, and helped to turn an idea into reality.
Siri Hartmann came in November and took charge of the redecoration and setting up of the office. She also helped with the launch in November 2008, and the initial contact with NGOs. We hope she’ll be back sometime to see how things have progressed.
Jane Reas was in Cambodia for 6 weeks in November and December and also helped with establishing ConCERT. She took Cambodia to heart and has been actively sharing her experiences through her work with young people since her return to England.
We were very fortunate that Aris Galiotos chose to volunteer at ConCERT when he returned to Siem Reap for the 3rd time at the end of January. He’d volunteered at one of the orphanages last year but liked what we’re doing so much that he stayed with us for 4 months and used his considerable talents to establish the website and database of member NGOs, helped with the initial recruitment of businesses, and took over the reins when Michael was ill in early March and had to return to England for 7 weeks. Michael and ConCERT owe him a great debt of gratitude – thanks Aris.
Leah Holzworth was also here at the start of 2009 and established much of the administration systems along with Aris. She also helped with the initial recruitment of businesses, and is now the driving force behind the ConCERT Facebook page. She is currently at home in Seattle but hopes to be back in Siem Reap soon.
Joni Verstraete came in late April and stayed with us for 3 months. Joni is currently completing a masters degree in responsible tourism at Leeds Metropolitan University in the UK, (the same department as Rosie Head and Jo Owen). She helped to write the guide on responsible volunteering and since returning to Belgium has been promoting ConCERT’s work through her contacts in the travel media there.
Ciaran Crawford arrived in early July – his 3rd visit to Siem Reap. He’s had some notable successes recruiting new businesses before becoming immersed in work on developing the English curriculum, (see below). Congratulations to Ciaran on his new job at COF; this means he’ll be in town until at least August 2010.
Jan Philipp Koester is a volunteer sponsored through the Weltwärts Programme run by DED - Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst, the German Development Service. There are only 22 such volunteers for the whole of Cambodia and we are very fortunate to have been selected as one of the recipient organisations. Jan Philipp started on the 24th August and will be working at ConCERT for 12 months. He is busy learning about our members NGOs and will be visiting them all over the coming weeks.
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New Staff
Thong joined ConCERT in late May and is our first full time Khmer member of staff. He is originally from Komprial village near Stoung in Kompong Thom province and moved to Siem Reap in 2002 to study at the Sala Bai hotel & restaurant school. He has had a variety of jobs in hospitality and his excellent communication skills and willingness to learn are proving an invaluable asset. He also talks to visitors at first hand about what life is like in rural Cambodia, does most of the administrative work, and helps to deliver training to staff from the businesses when they join ConCERT.
Srei Neng comes every Thursday afternoon and helps with whatever needs doing. She works at Hidden Cambodia and Paul and Sheila generously lend her to us each week.
Pheakdey and Mr Ty did a fantastic job with the new website and Pheakdey is now our resident IT expert.
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New web pages
The web site is constantly being reviewed and small changes made. The most significant new feature is the Responsible Volunteering page, which gives lots of information about volunteering in a concise and accessible way.
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Our growing network
We now have 22 member NGOs covering a wide range of activities including healthcare, environmental protection, agriculture support, HIV/AIDS, land mine clearance and rehabilitation of victims, vocational training, combating human trafficking, water filters and sanitation, infrastructure projects, emergency support for families in crisis, and general community development and support. We also have schools, orphanages and day care centres.
More than 35 Siem Reap businesses have joined so far and we are currently busy visiting them one by one, explaining what ConCERT does and how we help businesses, visitors, and the most needy members of Cambodian society.
We have been visited or contacted by people from Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Cambodia, Canada, Canary Islands, China, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Iran, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Scotland, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, USA, Vietnam, and Wales, and also by journalists from several countries.
We hope to have a visit soon from the Cambodian Lonely Planet representative, and ConCERT has been nominated for the British Guild of Travel Writers' best overseas tourism project award, to be held in London on 15th September.
Penny Low, a Singaporean MP, who was visiting Siem Reap for the ASEAN intergovernmental meeting, called at the office. In addition to her public office she is also the founder and president of SIP, the Social Innovation Park www.socialinnovationpark.org Its mission is “to Educate, Empower and Enhance social entrepreneurs and innovators with the objective to create a robust and dynamic social entrepreneurial community”. We are currently exploring how SIP and ConCERT can work together to bring the benefit of their network to Siem Reap.
We recently hosted a presentation by Eric Skaar from Oregon University, to explain their intern programme and how businesses and organisations in Siem Reap could benefit.
Our tour operator members have started providing information about forthcoming tour groups who wish to contribute in some way to organisations in Siem Reap; we have started circulating these requests to our members.
ConCERT is keen to bring together visitors, NGOs, and businesses in Siem Reap for the mutual benefit of all concerned and we will be developing new approaches and organising new events over the coming months.
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Interactive DVDs in Khmer
We we’re very fortunate in mid-June to receive a range of interactive DVD’s in Khmer. These have been produced by EuroTalk, a UK charity, and cover a wide range of subjects: Safe Water - Basic Hygiene - Looking After Your Teeth - Healthy Eating - High Blood Pressure – Diarrhoea - TB Can Be Cured – Cholera – Immunisation – Bed Nets Can Save Lives - Avoiding Malaria - Dangers Of Alcohol - Dangers Of Smoking - Say No To Glue And Drugs - Having An HIV Test - HIV/AIDS - Living With HIV/AIDS - Caring For Someone With AIDS - Becoming A Woman - Becoming A Man - Safer Sex For Teenagers - When To Have A Baby - TBA Skills 1 (Pregnancy) - You And Your New Baby – Breastfeeding – Beware Of Landmines - Making Compost - Planting Trees Is Good.
There are no copyright restrictions on this material and we were given them to distribute as widely as possible. After spending some time trying to find the best and cheapest way to copy them, David Scott from the Boom Boom Room generously agreed to copy them at cost price and we have distributed more than 500 copies to date.
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Development of a new English Curriculum for schools and orphanages
A group of volunteers, Ciaran, Jo, Bex, Sarah, Mandy, Anthony, (mostly primary school teachers from England and Ireland), worked for several weeks in the ConCERT office, developing a culturally relevant topic-based English Curriculum for children in Cambodian orphanages, schools and day centres. This was the brainchild of Jo and Bex, and the reasons they undertook this work include:
- Being able to communicate in English is one of the key skills enabling young people to get a well paid job in Cambodia
- Many small orphanages and schools rely heavily on volunteers to teach English, and other subjects
- Many small orphanages and schools have no curriculum or lesson plans
- Often there is no continuity in what children are taught in orphanages due to a constant turn-over of volunteer teachers
- Many volunteers arrive not knowing what the children have learnt already, what needs to be taught, and where the children are, as there is rarely any record of assessment available for each child.
- A number of volunteers, whether they are teacher-trained or not, feel at a loss for what to teach, particularly when there are very few resources.
- There is often a heavy emphasis on teaching English grammar by rote.
- Many available curricula are expensive, beyond the means of many small organisations, and have much content that is not culturally relevant for Cambodia
The curriculum covers years 1 to 6, has content that is culturally relevant to Cambodia, is relatively inexpensive to produce, consists of a mix of phonics, reading, writing, speaking, listening, and grammar. Grammar is a crucial aspect of learning English and the curriculum is designed to teach it through topics that are culturally relevant to the children, therefore making it more meaningful to them.
There are separate sections on grammar and phonics to be taught daily for 10-15 minutes at the start of each lesson. Simple assessment record tick sheets are included in the curriculum, which volunteers can easily fill in for each child. In that way the next volunteer can see where they can carry on from and where to pitch their lessons.
The Curriculum as produced is best described as a framework of teaching ideas which can be added to by people that use it. Some example resources have been included, but there are many which need to be made by the volunteer carrying out the lesson.
The first draft was presented to a group of ConCERT and other local NGOs on 11th August for feedback and ideas on how to improve it. They were all given the draft curriculum on CD and were asked to trial it over the next few weeks in their various orphanages and learning centres and give feedback for inclusion in the final version. The number of organisations now trialling the curriculum has risen to almost 40!
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ConCERT Facebook page
Finally, as mentioned above, Leah Holzworth has been busy setting up the ConCERT Facebook page. She is being helped by Aris and Jan Philipp so please take a look and join the cause.
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Support for ConCERT and future plans
- Establishment of a Fair Trade NGO shop
Many of our member NGOs have items for sale. We currently have a few of these in the office but we would like to open a shop on the first floor where a much more extensive selection of goods could be displayed for sale. This would help to promote the work that the NGOs are doing, and increase their income, as many of them cannot afford shop premises of their own.
This would require equipment such as tables, shelving and display racks, a desk and cash till, signage and storage equipment. We would also need an extra computer, and would need to employ an additional member of staff to run the shop.
- One off equipment costs $2,700
- Ongoing salary commitment of $100 per month
- Upgrade the facilities in the ConCERT office to support training and networking events
We are running and hosting an increasing number of training and networking events. These have many benefits in addition to the training that is delivered as the networking and linkages that are developing between our member organisations, which is leading to increased cooperation, efficiency, and effectiveness of their operations as they share ideas, approaches, and resources. This is one of the more visible and valuable developments, enabling us to build our networks for the future, and enables us to be more effective.
We need additional equipment to support training sessions, which include an extra laptop, and an upgrade of our internet connection to include a wireless network.
We are also being asked to deliver external training sessions in our partner businesses and we need materials and equipment to support this.
Costs:
Beamer/projector $700
Screen $100
Laptop $600
Upgraded wireless internet connection $50 installation plus $100 per month
- Establishment of a Drop in Centre
We wish to develop the area at the front off the office with displays on issues in the town such as environmental concerns, responsible tourism and volunteering information, events in the town, etc. we would also like to have some tables and chairs where people can sit and read the NGO literature, the newspapers, or other material, and we would also like to serve drinks and snacks.
Costs (approximate): Chairs, tables, basic catering equipment, plants, and display boards - $1,800
