Free to Discuss the Future, start from basic to further

2022 is like the year of reborn for Cambodia’s Public Health and Well-Being. After the Covid-19 threat, improvements in health, primary education, child development, and finances have been made in Cambodia. Children are expected to have pleasant lives with full-quality education, good health, a clean environment, and proper nutrition during childhood [World Bank, April 2023]. Cambodia has achieved significant health outcomes in the past decades that changed people’s lives. Cambodia achieved a remarkable result in improving the health and well-being of Cambodians and in leading the way towards ‘Health for All’ said Dr. Ailan Li, WHO Representative to Cambodia in April 2023.

Good Neighbors Cambodia (GNC) has been a part of this good change and good development to make sure that community people benefit from overall growth and have an advantage on the country’s development. Our key reforms and supports are ensuring resources of good health and improving access to quality public assistance. To make people feel free living, we cover their worries with groups of activities such as improving water sources, improving access to water, promoting WASH at Primary Schools, and promoting Wash in Health Care Facilities. Helping Cambodia produce solid health intelligence and a clean-living environment has traditionally been the priority of GNC and continue to be so in the future.

‘Feel free to discuss the future’ is how GNC persists to develop good impacts for Cambodia, and of course, this is our opportunity to call out all actions that motivate community people to participate in the Good WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) venture.

Our Intervention

It’s a fact that all organizations must include the WASH program in their mission and action plan to achieve Cambodia’s public health advancement because WASH is the route to a healthy life. GNC is pleased to contribute the corporation to Cambodia Society. We run our projects in a longer term, and the work of supporting such local public health action with evidence-informed practices is led and corporate by a provincial agency. GNC started the implementation with self-awareness and self-protection as human beings are sometimes the cause and the ones who are affected. Communities are engaged in a facilitated discussion and training about how to live healthily as well as how to execute promising practices. In addition, having sufficient supplies is essential to implement the promising practices, and GNC prepared initiative contributions for it. We facilitated community households, schools, and public health centers with facilities and procedures for sustainable execution.
We have considered the extra intervention as an important step in an extensive process that began before and will continue after the formal end of our project.

Major Achievement

1. WASH promotion awareness and education session

Good Neighbors Cambodia has started the first step of healthy life with students in different provinces. We link community people to world concerns and connect children to the world health organization. Children are inspired to be protected and protective of other people because of our educational events and gatherings.

We educated people about threats that could harm them and how to prevent or reduce them. Here we don’t promote only the theories but also practice with efficient facility and material to have a “used to” habit that could make a good change in their health. Moreover, WASH awareness activities distributed “WASH material and props” to encourage students to practice that good practice at home and school. This kind of activity results in habit change, consumption change, and perspective change that generally leads to cleanliness and happiness, and healthiness within the community.

2. WASH Campaign 

The WASH campaign is a program to invite villagers (target location) for a deep clear understanding of the WASH sponsorship, registered children (RC), and the relevant available programs to engage with WASH and Health. This meet-up guides people to a well-prepared, deep understanding of clean and healthy life.

Most of the participants are minority people with a lack of information about health care and health risk that is already closed to them. There are health and WASH programs included in each campaign to promote awareness and good practices among local people who usually live with natural lifestyles and don’t have a toilet or good water sanitation. After the event, communities had some development and understanding of the benefit of engaging in sponsorship programs and health care and wash. They change their behavior positively, then they protect and motivate their family and children to practice that good change in behavior.

3. Health & WASH integrated sponsorship service 

Annually, we corporate with local health centers and doctors to organize a sponsorship service program that provides health care, and treatments for all registered children who would receive health check-ups and treatment continuously and effectively in target villages of 6 communities in Battambang province, Banteay Meanchey province, Mondulkiri province, Kratie province, Ratanakiri province, and Phnom Penh City.

The program aims to meet the basic medical need and to improve the children’s well-being. Together, we traveled to provide safe and comfortable health check-ups and consultants from doctors and nurses and supported medicines to improve their current health situation. Through this sponsorship service parents and guardians are educated about the importance of the concept “protection is better than treatment”, know how to prevent themself and their children from serious illness, and have someone to rely on when they are in danger. Most importantly, more than 10,000 children are safe from unknown harm and have healthy lives with smiles.

4. Community WASH Exercise

To improve WASH in communities, GNC, local authorities, and partners routinely create seminars with the households to evaluate, remind, and generate new better criteria to motivate and engage more people to have good practices. We discussed the future: We develop implementing strategies and do research for contemporary effective programs, and upcoming concerns to ensure community safety and security in the health system.

Community people and Children who are willing to make a good change receive new good lessons to learn, modern training material to practice, tips to keep going, and materials to practice at home. This program increased the number of interested participants and enlarged WASH awareness. Additionally, community people could rest secure from worry and sadness. They feel happiness living in a healthy environment that is created by themselves.

5. Facility and Material support

WASH Education and Training alone are not enough to make any good change in the CDPs because deep understanding is helpless to prevent people from harm and illness if there is no exceptional support in materials. Due to financial difficulties, community people require assistance with technicians, materials, systems, facilities, mentors, and programs to start over. Good Neighbors Cambodia work hard to provide access such as good water source, clean water facilities, systems, procedures, and hygiene practice support materials to community people at schools and local health centers, especially in the first stage of practicing.

We travel to distribute soap, hand washing facility, and install good water which regular facility checkups and maintenance to sustain the WASH program’s effectiveness and ensure that people are willing to participate and change their previous lifestyle. Furthermore, to improve WASH at school GNC has been working to make certain that children and community people are able to access safe water. We promote access to safe and clean drinking water with good hygiene practices among students at primary school with our “Good School Drink Project”. Besides a clean water system and facility, we contribute water bottles to students to ensure good water consumption and improve students’ health conditions and education.

6. K-GMAC: Community Sanitation and Hygiene Improvement Project 

Since 2002 we continued developing the Cambodia community through medical care, health, safe water, and sanitation and K-GMAC is one of the main donors who has been the main support of GNC since 2020. K-GMAC assisted not only with the clothes and dolls for Cambodian children but also with sanitary materials and safe toilets to create a friendly living environment for the community people in Battambang. The project outreaches education on WASH and sanitation in the community, installs safe toilets for vulnerable families, and sustains good practice with training, execution monitoring, and support. The village health support group will continue to collaborate with local authorities in any actions possible to promote water sanitation and hygiene situation in the community. And the local authority will continue to collaborate with all relevant persons and sectors to mobilize the resource from internal and external assets to improve water and sanitation hygiene in Ou Taki commune.

CASE STORY 1

Mrs. Morng Sok San, 34 years old, and her spouse Mr. Roeut Sarout live with a daughter in Trang village, Ou Taki commune, Thmar Koul District, Battambang province. The family’s financial status is not so good compared to the daily expenses because she is a construction worker, and her husband is a farmer and seasonal labor worker who doesn’t have a regular income. Because of the unstable economy, her family member and other neighbors keep practicing open defecation in the forest and paddy rice fields near the village. The open defecation causes an unhealthy living environment and brings them sickness. Moreover, it put her in danger sometimes, she collapsed and fell, especially during the rainy season and at night.

In April 2023, Mr. Nhong Roeub, the chief of Trang Village evaluated and selected her family as the target beneficiary of the K-GMAC project. Mrs.Morng Sok San and her husband are invited to join an awareness education about WASH and received support from the project. Good Neighbors Cambodia installed a toilet for her family with the project subsidized and about 30 USD contribution. The whole family has good defecation and hygiene practices after that. They are healthier and live easier.

Mrs. Morng Sok San said, “Using the toilet is very important because it reduces infection and provides safety and comfort for her family and the neighbors in the village”.

Motivational Quote

“The Objective of Cleaning Is Not Just to Clean, But to Feel Happiness Living Within That Environment.”