A World of Difference Sponsors of Cambodia World Family Women's Education and Training Women's Integrated Rural Development Program

It was in 1998 that the Cambodia World Family's Women's Capacity Building Program began. Receiving only one year of initial support, the program has been thriving ever since. This program specifically targets women between the ages of 18- and 45- years old who are single or are living in poor families, in families that have too many members and women with families who are divorced, widowed or women who have left husbands due to violence in the home.

With the purpose of helping women to improve their socio-economic status, the goal of the Women's Capacity Building Program is to help empower women through education, and assist them to develop skills by which they can earn an income by themselves without being solely dependent on a man's labor. The Capacity Building Program includes: Sewing Training, and an English Education. We have found that when a woman is skilled in sewing she can feed herself but when a woman can sew and speak English she can find a job which feeds herself as well as her children. We reach out to women in Prey Veng, Kandal and Kampot Provinces.

We have found that when a woman is skilled in sewing and can speak English she can find a job which feeds herself as well as her family. But, when a woman possesses computer skills, she can find a high-paying job that will reduce her poverty and improve the quality of her life and that of her family. We reach out to women in Prey Veng, Kandal and Kampot Provinces.

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Sewing Training

There are two training sessions in the program each year. Each session has 40 participants divided in two groups with each session lasting 4 months. Each student studies four hours a day, five days each week. The CWF trainers teach students how to use the sewing machine, how to repair the sewing machines and how to make clothes using different patterns and fabrics. We provide the women with all their learning supplies and the students are given the clothing that they made to use, give away or sell. The clothing is of good quality and is suitable for work or leisure for men, women and children. At graduation, three students are honored for their hard work and sewing excellence; the top student receives a sewing machine of her own. This training has allowed many women to start their own sewing businesses while many others have found work in the garment industry in Phnom Penh. Last year, several of our students were invited to display their work at a garment show in the Philippines.

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Free English Education

Women participants of our sewing and computer training courses are also enrolled in our English Language course. Knowledge and skills in English opens up many more doors to jobs for women. We also provide English training courses for school-aged children in Kep and will be opening additional courses soon which will be available to all ages, male or female. These courses will be in Kandal Province. Our English courses are given at the beginning and intermediate levels and we also hold an English writing course. There is a small but well-stocked English library at our Kep sub-site.

 

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Women's Literacy Program

Khmer Literacy serves as the backbone of the Cambodia World Family's Women's Integrated Rural Development Program and has earned great respect and a very positive reputation among the people of Cambodia.

In the rural areas, the percentage of women who cannot read or write their own language can be as high as 80%. There are many reasons for this: three decades of war, girls having to drop out as early as primary school to work on family farms or baby sit siblings, schools too far away from the village, and families that are unable to pay the school fees or for uniforms because they live in disabling poverty. It is not really debatable that literacy is the most important intervention to be made in any effort to improve the lives of Cambodian women. It does not matter what statistics you look at or even how you look at them, if you want to improve any of the social-health indicators then you must educate women. Even if this education is all that is done, you will see an improvement in years of life expectancy, education of children, infant and child mortality.

The basic curriculum used for the literacy course was developed by UNICEF and the Ministry of Women's Affairs. It is a non-formal education curriculum fully approved for educating rural women and is based on 70 different lessons. Through the literacy program, women will learn to read and write the Khmer language as they learn about different issues of importance to a rural community: household and environmental cleanliness, productive use of free time, conflict resolution, maternal and child health, home gardening, women's rights, HIV-AIDS awareness and prevention, and much more

Because CWF believes that a good teacher is the key to a good education, the program director has developed an extensive training program which actually begins by selecting only those candidates that come highly recommended, are highly educated and perform well on the CWF Selection test. He also organizes continuing education programs for the teachers and monitors them on a daily basis. We are proud to be partnered with ProLiteracy International in our literacy efforts.