Agriculture training

Here are some pictures from today training about animal raising!

 

Bopha Sun's Story

We'd like to introduce you to Bopha Sun. She is one of the rice farmers that participated in the ALIVE project; the project that the CHOICES project has continued on from. Bopha is an example, and representative of the many people that are increasing their knowledge, learning new skills, and changing their lives through participating in projects like CHOICES.

Here is her story.

PD/Hearth Pilot Program

During May through to August, our nutrition staff were busy preparing for and piloting the PD/Hearth program within one village in the target district. A meeting with the village's reflect circle groups occurred to inform the community about the PD/Hearth program, with a further meeting with the village leaders to conduct wealth ranking and a market survey to ensure ADRA was properly informed about the village's nutrition situation. CHOICES staff then conducted an orientation meeting with key persons who would be involved during the pilot process.

CHOICES Staff and Village Leaders conducting Wealth Ranking and Market Survey of the target village

Buntha, Yourm, and Saray conducting the PD/Hearth Orientation Meeting

Next all of the children in the village under 5 years of age were weighed and the children who were found to be either malnourished or severely malnourished were noted as the ones the pilot program would help to rehabilitate. The results showed 25% of the weighed children falling within these two categories.

Buntha recording the weight of children in the village under 5

Project staff then met with village leaders to create a village map locating all children who were weighed and 3 Positive Deviant (poor families with well-nourished children) families and 3 Negative Deviant (well-off families with malnourished children) families were selected to be interviewed. These interviews highlighted the feeding practices, types of food, and the food preparation methods that the Positive Deviant families were using and the Negative Deviant families were lacking.

Based on the information learned during these interviews, a menu, based on food available within the village, and 10 key messages for the education component, were developed for the PD/Hearth program. In order for a key message to be meaningful, it needed to be based around the village's current nutrition practices.

Sophorn leading the Presentation of Results and PD/Hearth Planning with parents/caregivers

Sophorn Lim, the Project Manager for Family Nutrition from the Phnom Penh ADRA office, was present during the pilot process to help our staff. We were also very fortunate to have Stephanie Calhourn, who had just completed a degree in Nutrition and Dietetics at Andrews University in Michigan, volunteer her time to help evaluate the pilot program as well as take part in the program's activities.

Stephanie helping during a group feeding session

The PD/Hearth sessions involved an education component as well as a 30 day feeding component. During the first 30 day cycle of the pilot program 71% of the total child participants were rehabilitated, and after the second 30 day cycle all child participants were rehabilitated.

Staff still follow up with the families who participated in the program with child growth monitoring occurring every 2 months until the children are 5 years old.

Learning through Song and Dance

Incorporating song and dance into our training sessions is a great way to help trainees remember the topic that is being facilitated while having a lot of fun at the same time. Staff also include games, role plays, and graphic making within the trainings to emphasise the importance of providing an interactive learning experience. Creating an environment where every participant feels comfortable enough to share their experiences and opinions and questions, is a key aspect of the learning process here within the CHOICES project.

CHOICES Staff, Community Supervisors, and Reflect Circle Facilitators singing and dancing together during the first of the Essential Nutrition Actions (ENA) training of trainers.

Sprinkles Training

On 28th and 29th April, CHOICES staff, field supervisors, health centre staff, Operational District trainers, and Provincial Health Department trainers attended a nutrition training at the Operational District meeting hall. The focus of the training was to introduce a micronutrient supplement for young children (specially 6 to 23 months old) called Sprinkles, however the appropriate types of foods and serving sizes for children within this age group were also discussed.
A dish called barbar kap kuep krueng, or 'pot rice', was highlighted as a way for mothers in the villages to introduce their children to solid foods. During the lunch break on the last day of training, participants practised how to prepare pot rice.

During a training session

Every one participated in making pot rice

Pot rice has a variety of ingredients: rice, greens, pumpkin, potato, eggs, meat

A finished bowl of pot rice

REFLECT Workshop 2015

On 17-20th March, ADRA Cambodia hosted the REFLECT Workshop 2015 which saw 24 participants from ADRA country offices come together from all around the world. The objective of the sessions were to become familiar with the Reflect approach, to be able to modify the approach to convey ADRA's values and priorities, and for other country offices to consider using the approach in their own programming.

The workshop, facilitated by ADRA Australia, was mainly held in Pursat province where participants had the opportunity to visit some of Reflect Circle meetings occurring within the CHOICES project and observe the methodology in practice while also implementing what they were learning during the workshop sessions. The workshop finished up in Phnom Penh as a forum where other Cambodian organisations were invited to attend and share about the approaches they were using in their own programming and the Reflect methodology was reviewed.

The REFLECT (Regenerated Freirean Literacy through Empowered Community Techniques) approach was originally developed by Action Aid who took the theories of Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, and combined these with Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) techniques. This incorporates the knowledge and opinions held by local people in the planning and management of development programs, adding to the sustainability of the program. ADRA Cambodia has taken this approach and modified it to suit the local context. This is the methodology that CHOICES is based around.

Workshop participant, Shadreck (ADRA Malawi) and translator, Rany (ADRA Cambodia), with a mens' Reflect Circle group in Pursat province

Drawings aid in the Reflect Circle discussion

Workshop Participants

Drawings/diagrams are a big part of the Reflect methodology and were used in the workshop sessions, rather than powerpoint presentations.

The Reflect forum in Phnom Penh

CHOICES Strategies

The CHOICES project has a number of aspects to it: nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, child development, agriculture, non agriculture livelihoods, savings groups, etc. Project staff use various strategies within these different project aspects to ensure successful activity implementation.

The main methodology used is the Reflect community learning and action model (http://www.reflect-action.org/) which sets up groups of community members and forms the foundation of participatory action in the communities. The key methodology used for nutrition is incorporating the Essential Nutrition Actions Framework (ENA Framework) into the Reflect groups (called Reflect Circles). The Positive Deviance/Hearth Approach (PD/Hearth) methodology is another key methodology which while including a feeding program has behavior change at the heart.

The Essential Nutrition Actions (ENA) Framework focuses on enhancing the nutrition of pregnant women/mothers of new borns, and infants during the first 1,000 days (from conception to the first two years) of life as this is the period of time "where nutrient requirements are increased, the risks of under-nutrition are great, and the consequences of deficiencies are most likely to be irreversible." The Framework outlines seven key messages that outline interventions that target this 1,000-day window. A complete listing of the ENA key messages can be found here: http://www.coregroup.org/storage/Nutrition/ENA/Booklet_of_Key_ENA_Messages_complete_for_web.pdf.

These ENA key messages are incorporated into the topic guidelines used by the community facilitators during Reflect Circle meetings in the target villages. Community members are also facilitated to choose additional topics based on their community's needs and include these in the meetings as well.

The PD/Hearth Approach focuses on reducing the level of child malnutrition within communities. The approach aims to find beneficial practices that parents/caretakers with well-nourished children from impoverished families within the community use and then to educate families with malnourished children on these practices in order to begin the rehabilitation process. The full program takes 30 days to complete and guarantees positive change.

Project staff are preparing to pilot the PD/Hearth approach within Reflect Circles in one village in May. This will give time for staff to learn and gain experience through practice before complete implementation. To read more about this approach visit: http://www.coregroup.org/our-technical-work/initiatives/diffusion-of-innovations/84.

Special Meeting with Supervisors

On 2nd March 2015, ADRA staff held a meeting with the supervisor field partners to discuss changes in the workplan, the need for Reflect Circle facilitator capacity building, and to plan for further training and coaching. Instead of simply making all of the decisions, ADRA works to ensure that project participants have input in how the project activities are being run. This meeting made certain that communication between ADRA and the supervisors was clear and that the supervisors had an opportunity to voice their opinions about how the training and coaching are going so far.

Outlining the roles and responsibilities of Supervisors and ADRA Staff in upcoming Reflect Circle facilitator monthly meetings.

Sophearom explaining the timetable of Learning Through Play topics.

ADRA Staff & Supervisors planning for the supervision of training in new villages.

Learning Through Play Training

CHOICES staff have been busy in the field this week (25-30 January 2015) conducting training of trainer sessions on Learning Through Play with Reflect Circle facilitators in Reflect Circles. The purpose of this training is to provide parents with young children (0-5 years) with the information they need to understand child development, while also encouraging them to play with their children in order to enhance their child's growth.
Who said work can't be fun?

A group of mothers draw different parts of the body.

An example of homemade toys - a fishing game.

Community facilitators and CHOICES staff during training.