Sharing Resources

On Tuesday Chab Dai hosted a team of university students who used our Resource Library to do a research activity about issues of injustice. With over 1,600 English resources that span more than 60 categories surrounding human trafficking & abuse it serves as a suitable learning space for students, practitioners, & project managers.

Note: Chab Dai also has a Khmer & Vietnamese library section. Library cards are free of charge for members & partner staff. Come check it out or email resources@chabdai.org for more information.

Building Quality Together

Chab Dai team finished a week of strategic planning for our activities in the upcoming year. Each of the 6 project teams met to review and evaluate our activities, lessons learned, and impact last year.

Based on our evaluation of each project's strengths and weaknesses, we drafted goals for each quarter in 2011-2012.

A running theme for the Learning Community Project was QUALITY.

This year we want to focus on quality rather than quantity by:

• Building the capacity of our existing members, rather than the size of the coalition (this year we grew by over 15%);
• Focusing on offering only practical and contextualized training;
• AND cleaning our library (almost 2,000 resources in 3 languages) to focus on sharing only the most relevant and helpful books and research with our members.

Other Learning Community events to stay-tuned for this year are:

• A new Khmer website customized for our members to use
• Advocating for dignity and respect of our clients in the dissemenation of our media policy
• Assessing the project gap areas in the provinces
• Starting a new, Khmer-led, Leadership Forum.

Through the goal-setting training and planning sesssions the bonds of our team strengthened and we are excited for the new year ahead! Please pray for wisdom as we finalize our plans on the following weeks and put them into action!

More Meeting Space!

Closing in on the new year, Chab Dai offices in Cambodia reorganized our office to pave the way for our expanding projects in the 2011.

Practitioners, shelter directors, social workers, and counsellors from organizations working to end trafficking & advocate for child protection visit our office regularly for trainings & forums. We now have 2 meeting rooms to meet with members and visitors, including our large conference table that hosts our round-table forums. Another addition is an interview room to meet with clients or member staff for one-on-one consultations.

Next week our project teams will meet for strategic planning, including an evaluation of 2010, setting goals for 2011, and capacity building trainings. Please pray that our team has wisdom and clear direction to continue working against trafficking & abuse in Cambodia!

‘We Need Capacity-Building Trainings!!’

Today I traveled with Sithy to a popular Cambodian city five hours outside of the capitol to do a training needs assessment with aftercare programs. Together we JOINED HANDS with 5 shelters working in the region and 15 practitioners (social workers, counselors, & shelter managers).

Aftercare shelters here are small, and several are less than a year old. We are excited they have responded to the growing number of trafficking and rape cases reported. However, being so far from the capitol city (& our office) has been a challenge for their staff attending capacity-building trainings and forums. They requested Chab Dai’s presence in the province to assist in raising the standard of care in their programs, and facilitate networking between NGOs.

We have responded.

Chab Dai is planning a week of trainings and forums in January 2010with members & partners to begin addressing the needs outlined at today’s meeting. For a long-term solution, we have emphasized the need for practitioners in the city to share resources, invite members to trainings, and do cross-learning visits to programs. We believe that effectively raising the standard of care can only be done in partnership!

Lights + Camera + ACTION!!

Chab Dai is making a VIDEO about our learning community and projects in Cambodia. We are excited to finish and share the beautiful model of collaboration and joining hands.

For three weeks we have been interviewing member staff and Chab Dai project managers about what Chab Dai means to them and our impact on their projects. Yesterday and all day today I traveled with colleagues to the provinces to interview village leaders, pastors, and school teachers who have been trained about trafficking from Chan Dai.

Amazing! It was awesome to see the impact Chab Dai is having on communities throughout Cambodia.

Today was full of proud moments for Chab Dai, and the best part is it’s all Khmer driven, visioned, and organized!!

Our Photographer: George Hsia: www.georgehsia.com