Clean Water Program Update

Seng, Our Clean Water Program Manager,  discusses the activities involved in the Clean Water Program; the latest collaboration with Community, Liaison and Assistance Program and the people and communities that are supported through our clean water initiative.

I am Seng.I have been the Clean Water Program manager, for about a year now. We do Clean Water  Program activities at schools and in villages. We are still providing hygiene training to students at primary and kindergarten schools, in Siem Reap town and at the same time, we are checking the filters and wells that we have provided, they are using very well.. There are now 12 schools that we have done, which means 6280 students have been provided with hygiene training! Students, teachers and principles of schools are very welcoming and very happy with what they are getting from our activities. 

Volunteer Sa Em, teaches kindergarten children at Krong Siem Reap school how to wash their hands.

Recently, the Clean Water program has cooperated with Community Liaison and Assistance program (CLA) to implement their programs in the communities.  We started with providing program training, on the 28 Apr to 18 May 2013 for all scholarship students volunteering in the program. We feel very happy when we have two teams working together because we have more experiences, and learn from CLA, even though the tasks to implement seems new to us and the work to be completed seems a bit difficult at the beginning. Now it is actually easier in implementation because there are more suggestions and ideas when discussing with each other.

Part of the CW and CL&A collaboration, the volunteers attend a fun and engaging training.

I have more knowledge about these two projects working together and having noticed that there are many more  improvements in the whole village that we have been working in. We can run projects  in the villages more frequently. We keep observing or monitoring what has been done in the village and we can inform the problems and solve them faster. 

The group conduct Specialized Training in Kork Thmey village

Since starting, there are 17 villages JWOC has implemented Clean Water. After having checked around ten villages, we decided to choose Kork Thmey village that is to the west of Siem Reap - about 30 kilometres.  There have been many problems in the village, lacking  access to water, not enough materials to make clean water and lacking good hygiene knowledge in their lives. We have seen 30 hole wells, 12pit wells and 33pully wells, but most of them haven’t enough water in dry season and sometimes they dry up. We found thirteen places to install new wells t In fact, Kork Thmey is a small village of only 170 families. Most of them are farmers, but there isn’t enough irrigation, the people can farm only in rainy season. In dry season, some people go to work in Thailand illegally, some find the work in Siem Reap town and most women stay at home looking after their house and children. 

CW and CL&A Program Managers sign a contract agreement with the village chief and group leaders at Kork Thmey village.

I really hope that there will be a lot of change in the village due to Clean Water program and Community Liaison and Assistance working together. We have assigned the group leaders in the village by ourselves, not decided by  the village chief. Most of them are women because we think they are actively involved in the community effective helpful and trying hard to help their village.

A consultation with the village chief

Drilling a new well, Kork Thmey village

I am looking forward to writing again next time to tell you more about the Clean Water Program’s work in villages and schools. Thank you very much for reading my update and for supporting Clean Water in Cambodia!