Hagar changes a whole community

Pictured above is Kang Sopha. She is a member of the Commune Committee for Women and Children (CCWC) for her commune in the Phnum Proek District (Battambang). In addition to being one of the former battle fields of the civil war during the 1980’s and 1990’s (which destroyed human resource and infrastructure), Kang Sopha’s commune is also very close to the Cambodia-Thailand border. This means that those in the commune are particularly vulnerable to the temptation to travel to Thailand illegally and participate in unsafe migration for the purposes of trying to find work.

Before Hagar began working with the CWCC, Kang Sopha says that her whole community had a limited understanding of what child protection, child abuse and positive parenting were. She also says that there were very few reports made regarding incidents with children and local authorities had limited capacity and knowledge on how to respond to these cases and intervene if any reports were made. She explains:

“I was not confident or strong enough to respond to the child abuse cases, especially when there were some reports from my community people. I was unclear on the intervention processes as well as the service providing and I could not recognize or identify the forms of child abuse or human trafficking cases.”

In August 2020, Hagar staff began working with the CWCC with the intention of building their capacity and confidence to identify and respond to child abuse in their commune. Hagar staff provided coaching to team members and education as to how to respond to different situations. Hagar staff also supported members in facilitating their own trainings with other community leaders throughout the commune. Kang Sopha says of this training from Hagar:

“I can understand and have clear flow and procession to find out the resources to refer children and women victim cases to get the service supports from Hagar and also other developing partners. I am confident enough to lead those CBO (Community Based Organisations) groups, who are our community members, to promote more child protection reporting mechanism. I have learnt a lot of thing from Hagar about the ways of working with and responding to children and women issues, how to apply child friendly approaches, especially reporting mechanism.”

Hagar is also encouraged to hear about the positive impacts their training has had on the commune as a whole, as community leaders have passed on the information they have learnt from Hagar through their networks. More cases of child abuse are being reported to the appropriate parties which indicates that community understanding of child abuse and children’s rights has increased. Kang Sopha says:

“I think that my whole community members have also increased their understanding on child protection.  For me, I could confidentially respond to those reported cases under the collaboration and coordination with Hagar and other developing partners in my community as I could respond to these cases properly and effectively even the crisis or emergency cases.”

The work that the Hagar Cambodia team (and our donors by extension) have done with the leadership of this commune will have long-term impact and illustrates the power of our preventative work. Not only is the community better informed about the rights of children, but the leadership are now confident in how to handle cases of abuse when they are reported! Together with our donors, Hagar has facilitated real change in this community!