January - March 2010

Volunteering for International Development from Australia

VIDA (Volunteering for International Development from Australia) is part of the Australian Government’s volunteer program. Funded by AusAID, the Australian Government agency responsible for managing Australia’s overseas aid program, the VIDA program places skilled Australian volunteers in developing countries in the Asia Pacific Region. VIDA volunteers work with local counterparts to reduce poverty and achieve sustainable outcomes in the communities in which they work through skills and knowledge exchange, institutional strengthening and capacity development.

VIDA works with educational institutions, government departments, NGOs, International NGOs and private companies in Australia and partner countries to develop volunteer assignments and build networks between Australia and the Asia Pacific region.

VIDA provides volunteers with return airfares, living and accommodation allowances, medicals and vaccinations, comprehensive insurance, pre-departure briefing and in-country support.

Governance IssueThis issue of Connect is focused on Governance featuring articles from volunteers and organisations that work within this development sector.

WelcomeAs I travel and meet our volunteers, Host Organisations and Australian Partner Organisations, I am continually reminded of the dedication and commitment of all of our volunteers and stakeholders. This commitment is demonstrated again in this issue of CONNECT which has a focus on Governance.

Austraining’s VIDA program is fast approaching the completion of its first five years of operation. This gives us an opportunity to reflect on our achievements and explore opportunities to improve and potentially redefine VIDA for its next phase, building on the excellent work that has been undertaken by our volunteers and partners.

The articles in this issue demonstrate the diversity of activities under the Governance umbrella – Advocacy, Community Development, Child Protection and Social Work to name a few.

Since its inception in 2005, VIDA has been striving to align its operations with both the AusAID and Partner Government development priorities and to make sure all our volunteer placements contribute to sustainable development. In partnership with AusAID, Partner Governments and our stakeholders, Austraining has worked to develop and implement innovative, responsive and dedicated approaches to support the strategic placement of our volunteers in key sectors in each country. We are able to report on volunteer activities and the good work our volunteers are doing, however it is much more difficult to quantify the development effectiveness of volunteer placements. This had plagued volunteer sending agencies across the globe for decades as well as the broader development activities being undertaken through multilateral and bilateral aid programs.

Attempting to address this very complex question of how individual volunteer inputs contribute to the development outcomes at sector, country and ultimately the MDG level, Austraining embarked on a very ambitious

project with our consortium partners CECI/WUSC from Canada to develop and pilot an approach to designing, capturing and reporting on volunteer placement achievements against country development priorities and outcomes. This project was successfully piloted in Vietnam, Cambodia and the Philippines and will be extended to all countries where we place volunteers.

Moving forward, Austraining, in partnership with Australian Business Volunteers (ABV) and our long standing Canadian partner, CECI/WUSC, has won a Core Partner role in the new Australian Government Volunteer Program along with AVI and the Australian Red Cross.

This new program has two phases, the first being the design phase which commenced in January 2010 between the Core Partners and AusAID. A preliminary draft framework for the new program has been developed and has been made available for consultation. The second phase is the implementation phase which commences in July 2010 and builds on the unique and valuable contribution volunteers make in developing countries and to poverty reduction, sustainable development and cross cultural understanding.

The VIDA program would like to thank and acknowledge in excess of 530 volunteers and 70 dependants mobilised to more than 400 Host Organisations across eighteen countries in the Asia Pacific region. Also the 100 or more Australian Partner Organisations that have worked with VIDA to support our Host Organisations and volunteers over the first five years of operation.

All the team at Austraining, in conjunction with its partners and stakeholders and AusAID, is looking forward to being an active core partner in the design, development and implementation of the new Australian Government Volunteer Program over the next five years.

January - March 2010

Ray Ash, VIDA Project Director

Burnet Institute for Medical Research and Public HealthCARE AustraliaCaritas AustraliaChristian Brothers – OceaniaDepartment of Culture and the Arts (WA)Emergency Architects AustraliaFederal Court of Australia Foundation for Developing Cambodian Communities (FDCC)Free the Bears Fund Inc.GK Ancop AustraliaGlobal Development GroupInternational Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW)International Women’s Development AgencyKoto InternationalLifeline AustraliaMarie Stopes International Australia

VIDA welcomes submissions from VIDA volunteers and alumni, Host Organisations and Australian Partner Organisations. Please contact the Community Engagement and Marketing Manager at info@vidavolunteers.com.au for further information.

These details are correct at time of printing. Please check the VIDA website, www.vidavolunteers.com.au for the latest information.

Connect Magazine is printed on recycled paper.

Cover Photo Credit : Deepika drawing – Plan Asia youth media artist at work. Credit: Emma Miall.

Monash UniversityMurdoch UniversityNSW Attorney General’s DepartmentOxfam InternationalPacific Asia Observatory for Cultural Diversity in Human DevelopmentPermaculture Research InstitutePerth Zoo Philippines Australia Studies Centre (PASC)Plan International AustraliaSave the ChildrenSymbiosis AustraliaTransparency InternationalUNHCRUNICEFUniversity of QueenslandWorld Society for the protection of AnimalsWorld Vision AustraliaZoos Victoria

Important Dates

March – May 2010

March 1

Assignments advertised on VIDA website

March 14 – 17

VIDA Pre-Departure Briefing

April 1

Assignments advertised on VIDA website

April 8 – 29

VIDA Information sessions

May 1

Assignments advertised on VIDA website

To find out more about how your organisation could benefit by becoming an Australian Partner Organisation with VIDA, please contact the VIDA Team apo@vidavolunteers.com.au or freecall (in Australia) 1800 995 536. VIDA would like to thank our active

Australian Partner Organisations for their

support and involvement:

Adventist Development Relief Agency Australia (ADRA) Asia South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education Australia (ASPBAE)Australian Foundation for Peoples of Asia and the Pacific (AFAP)Baptist World Aid AustraliaBlue Dragon Children’s Foundation (Australia)

Editor: Matt Lees Design: Agency of New DesignContributors: Ray Ash Jenny Brown Kaye Elliott Claire Coxon Matthew Alberto Michelle Eaton Emma Miall Alexandra Jones

Ray Ash,

VIDA Project Director

Australian Partner Organisations

VIDA Volunteer Claire Coxon reflects on life as a volunteer

while working with Host Organisation the Green Gecko Project.

VIDA Volunteer Matthew Alberto outlines the challenges of his

assignment in Bangladesh and for the World Food Program.

VIDA Volunteer Emma Miall a Communications and

Development Capacity Building Officer with Plan

International highlights campaigns that are raising

awareness of children’s rights.

VIDA Volunteer Alexandra Jones introduces an element

of her work as a Legal Support Officer in Cambodia.

VIDA Volunteers Kaye Elliott

and Jenny Brown look at

sustainability with Lifeline Fiji.

Women Against Crime is an

organisation based in Vanuatu that

has become part of the focus for

VIDA Volunteer Michelle Eaton.

VIDA Volunteer Claire Coxon reflects on life as a volunteer while

working with Host Organisation the Green Gecko Project.

Cambodia is just magical and my volunteer experience here has

been truly amazing. It was during a thunderstorm in my leaky

wooden house that I realised that the life of a volunteer isn’t

easy! I have lived in Cambodia and volunteered with an NGO in

Siem Reap called the Green Gecko Project for 3 years and have

been funded through the VIDA program for 18 months. I have

not cooked a meal at home for 4 months during rainy season

because my pots and pans are on my wooden floor catching the

steady flow of water from my roof. I’m constantly hot and sweaty

and often have bad Cambodia days, but even when Cambodia

seems to treat me badly, I can’t bear a grudge for very long.

I am marketing and funding development coordinator for the

Green Gecko Project. The Green Gecko Project provides holistic

care to more than 60 begging children from Siem Reap, as well

as offering support to their struggling families. A safe haven

for playing and learning. Green Gecko is a second home and

for some, the only home. The Green Gecko Project aims to to

empower these children with skills, education and care, through

their formative years and into their adult lives. The parents of

the families we work with are mostly unable to engage in labour

markets, most are illiterate and uneducated, they are victims of

landmine accidents and they are discriminated against. Green

Gecko also strives to break the begging cycle of these families

through sustainable long-term training and empowerment

solutions.

My role within the organisation has been capacity building the

organisational skills of the Khmer staff, including transferring skills

associated with liaising with donors and the importance of strong

donor relationships, report writing etc. I have also been involved

with the strategic development of the Green Gecko program. So a

lot of the work I do is in the background of the day to day running

of things at Gecko. This was made quite clear to me by one of

our older boys who said to me a few months ago with a big smile

on his face “ I won’t miss you Claire, you haven’t really taught me

anything, not like my teachers I miss them a lot” Walking away

with my wounded ego, I realised he is right, I have not been in a

classroom since I first began at Gecko … but I have made sure he

has food on his plate and his school has been paid for and helped

the Khmer staff to able to continue to provide these things and

for Green Gecko to have the sustainability and capacity to keep

going…. clearly that is hard for an 18 year old to understand!

I was also recently asked by one of the older Green Gecko girls,

who has been with the project for 4 years, if I thought Ron from

Harry Potter was good looking. I told her I’m not one for red

heads, but what struck me was 3 years ago when I first arrived in

Siem Reap, this young girl, was one of the first kids I met. Then,

she was begging and living on the street, she was responsible for

finding enough money to support her younger brothers and sisters

and her father’s alcohol and gambling habits. She was physically

abused and mature well beyond her years. She wasn’t thinking

about whether Ron from Harry Potter was cute or not. She was

wondering how she would manage to feed her younger brothers

and sisters and hoping to get enough money so her father didn’t

beat her. Her eyes were empty. Now 3 years on, she is top of her

English class and doing very well at Khmer school, she wonders

about things 14 year-old girls deserve to be wondering about.

Witnessing the determination and courage these kids have

shown and knowing my efforts have helped make this happen,

has made every drip from my roof, every bad Cambodia day

and every hot and sweaty moment worth every second! Yes the

life of a volunteer is not easy but it has been the most rewarding

experience I’ve had.

Slowly I’ve figured out that effective capacity building takes time,

patience, creativity and needs to start with a relationship based

on mutual respect. I’ve lost my patience and made plenty of

mistakes, but I’ve learnt from this and while I have gone to a

great deal of effort to understand Cambodia, I am still so often

confronted with the humbling fact that I’ve barely scratched the

surface.

For more information please visit:

www.greengeckoproject.org

Photo Credits:

www.greengeckoproject.org

the most rewarding experience I’ve had...

6 7

8 9

Photo Credits:

Kaye with

founding members

Pushpanjali Nair and

Margaret Simardi –

Jenny Brown.

Governance

VIDA volunteers Kaye Elliott and Jenny Brown look at the

sustainability of Lifeline Fiji.

“Lifeline (Australia) was founded in 1963 by the late Reverend Dr

Sir Alan Walker, after he received a call by a distressed man, who

three days later took his own life. Determined not to let loneliness,

isolation or anxiety be the cause of other deaths, Sir Alan

launched a crisis line, which operated out of the Methodist Central

Mission in Sydney.

Just a few days after it was first established Lifeline received over

one hundred calls for help.”*

Today, Lifeline has centres in nineteen countries, who, as part of

an international network, are affiliated with Lifeline International.

Lifeline Fiji was one of the centres represented at a Lifeline

(Pasifika) Conference held in Samoa in 2009 to provide a forum

for discussion for countries of the Pacific Islands who wish

to commence or extend their own Lifeline service. Lifeline Fiji

President, Mrs Margaret Simadri, addressed the conference with

a comprehensive report on the establishment of Lifeline in Fiji and

received a standing ovation after her delivery. And so she should!

Margaret, alongside her peer, Mrs Pushpa Nair, have been

keeping the Lifeline Fiji flame alive with little support or recognition

for 15 years, through political coups, through hurricanes and

floods, and through sheer determination. Mrs Pushpa Nair held

the executive office of Treasurer for many years, retiring from this

position in 2009. Together they established Lifeline Counselling

Service a core non-government organisation (NGO) in Fiji that is

now registered as a charitable trust under the Charitable Trust

Act Cap 65 (Fiji Islands). This was a significant milestone for the

national recognition of Lifeline services in Fiji.

In 1994 the Ba Methodist church leaders Reverend Emmanuel

Reuben and Deaconess Margaret Reuben held an inaugural

service to commemorate the establishment of a Lifeline

counselling service. The service was held in a small chapel on

the grounds of the Ba Mission Hospital. About 30 people were in

attendance and for the next decade Lifeline provided counselling

in that same chapel through the efforts of a very dedicated core

of volunteers to people experiencing suicidal thoughts, grief and

loss, relationships stress and depression. Under the auspices

of the Methodist church, the service was able to continue at the

chapel rent free and sell tea and cake to help with fundraising.

Mrs Pushpa Nair was one of the original tea shop and counselling

supporters and is still active in her volunteer service for Lifeline Fiji

today. She tells about the little tea shop that was attached to the

chapel where volunteers would provide a cup of tea and a piece

of cake to visitors and clients as part of their fundraising efforts.

One year a hurricane destroyed one side of the chapel and funds

had to be found to rebuild at a cost of nearly $14,000FJD. Lifeline

also had a presence in Suva, the capital of Fiji, but this was

disbanded after the military coup in 2000. Around 2004, there

was a change in the church management and the Lifeline service

was requested to pay rent to the Methodist church for the use of

the chapel. It was a cost they could not afford.

Lifeline struggled to maintain identity in Fiji over these years and

it seemed, at one point, that the struggle was too hard. Volunteer

numbers were low and the thought of having to pay rent with

limited income was too much. Mrs Nair and Mrs Simadri unhappily

made contact with Mrs Mary Parsissons, the Lifeline International

representative from Australia, to say that Lifeline Fiji might have to

close up. But Mary Parsissons thought there must be something

that could be done, so that all the effort put in up until now would

not be in vain.

As a result of discussions with Mary Parsissons, Margaret

Simadri and Pushpa Nair were invited to attend the Lifeline

Australia National Conference 2008. Whilst in attendance at

the Conference, support was offered by Mary Parsissons and

Mr Richard Johnson of Bundaberg Lifeline, Queensland for the

continuance of Lifeline Fiji with some help via Lifeline Australia and

Lifeline Community Care Queensland.

Lifeline Australia and Lifeline Community Care Queensland now

assist Lifeline Fiji through provision of training and mentor visits

and some funding assistance. A funding submission sent to the

Canadian Fund around the same time was successful in raising

enough money to set up a new office in Ba.

In 2009, two Australian Lifeline employees, Kaye Elliott and Jenny

Brown were accepted as long term VIDA volunteers. Jenny siad,

“We’ve only been here 3 months and already we can feel the difference that a couple of people with skills in areas of governance, property, client services and training are able to provide”.

Although the struggle with external realities like fluctuating levels of

political unrest, hurricanes and the Ba River flood of January 2009

remains a constant test of resilience, Lifeline Fiji has a vision to

continue to provide counselling and training to the people of Fiji.

Lifeline counselling engages clients: male, female, young, elderly,

and of any cultural persuasion who are affected by issues involving

family and relationship problems, suicide, grief and loss, domestic

violence, child protection, mental health and problem behaviours

such as addictions. Clients may contact Lifeline counselling via the

telephone or face-to-face.

A large part of our assignment is focused on skills exchange to

ensure sustainable operations for the service. Jenny’s area of

governance involves working with the newly established Board

of Trustees, providing governance training, ensuring there is a

working understanding of the new Constitution and counsel for

the direction of strategic growth of Lifeline Fiji. For the dedicated

group of volunteers and local supporters in Ba, it’s bringing in

fresh perspectives to help formulate policy and procedures and

assistance with day-to-day operations. For work in the area of

property, we are helping to boost maintenance processes and

occupational health and safety measures and, for ourselves, a

lot of learning about the “Fijian way” that things are done. Kaye’s

specialty in training and client services is through designing and

delivering quality training programs that include train-the-trainer

principles to assist sustainability of Lifeline Fiji. We are looking at

establishing best practice client processes and procedures that

are professionally suited to the counselling service delivery. It’s an

acknowledgement of what is working already and has done for so

long, and being able to recognise the need for more interagency

co-operation, especially in the support of clients with thoughts of

suicide, or more tragically, support for the bereaved parties after a

person has completed suicide.

But what gives any volunteer the heart to continue are outcomes

that are intangible by nature, like giving a small group of loyal

workers some hope for the future, injecting new energy, learning

to enjoy different foods, sharing the smiles of young children,

learning a new language, sharing in the highs and lows of the

program, and feeling honoured to work beside such wonderful

people.

*Source: Lifeline (Australia) website:

www.lifeline.org.au/learn_more/about_lifeline

big things grow.F r o m l i t t l e t h i n g s

Photo Credits:

Dean Saffron

Rural Development

VIDA Volunteer Matthew Alberto outlines the challenges of

his assignment in Bangladesh.

“Fighting Hunger Worldwide” – That’s the slogan of the United

Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and this slogan is

meaningful for me because I currently volunteer for WFP in Cox’s

Bazar, Bangladesh with the support of VIDA.

The Challenge of Hunger in Cox’s Bazar

I began my assignment as a Program Officer for WFP in April,

2009. It took me a while to settle in. I had to get used to the

environment, the people and the culture. Now, in 2010, I feel more

capable and want to do more for the people here.

Walking to the WFP sub-office everyday, you can see the

challenge of hunger.

You find children walking the streets, foregoing their education, in

order to collect recyclable rubbish scraps to sell for food. Seeing

these kids really impacts me on a daily basis. It frustrates me and

motivates me to find durable solutions against poverty and hunger

during my stay here. I am constantly aware of the importance of

my work.

The irony is that the desperate man-made poverty in the region is

often contrasted to the natural beauty of the Cox’s Bazar beach,

which is hailed by Bangladeshis as the longest beach in the world.

Located in the Cox’s Bazar District are Rohingya refugees

who fled from persecution from Myanmar in the 1990s. There

are close to 30,000 registered refugees in the two refugee

camps, Kutupalong and Nayapara. Yet, interspersed within the

local community of Cox’s Bazar District are roughly 300,000

unregistered refugees.

The major challenges now are the dependency created

by prolonged aid of the registered refugees, as well as the

tensions between the refugees and the local host community.

Unfortunately, the issue of hunger and poverty is not restricted to

the refugees. Many of the local Cox’s Bazar population also face

extreme poverty and hunger.

Therefore, WFP is now involved in both the humanitarian food

relief of the Rohingya refugees and the development of food

security for the Bangladeshi people in the area.

Solving the Challenge by Fighting Hunger

How can we help solve the hunger challenge in Cox’s Bazar?

My role with WFP is mainly concerned with governance,

particularly for the Rohingya refugees. ‘Governance’ in the context

of my assignment means 2 things:

1. Participatory Governance

2. Economic Governance

Increasing Participation of Refugees in Decision-Making

Many of the refugees in the Kutupalong and Nayapara camps

have depended on WFP’s food aid since the beginning of the

1990s. While humanitarian relief is important in transferring food

resources to emergency-affected peoples, the Rohingya refugees

in Bangladesh have been here for nearly 20 years.

The general food distribution is the key programme of the WFP

Cox’s Bazar Sub-Office. Its purpose is to provide food rations to

the refugees in the camps. Each person is given 2160 kilocalories

10 11

Governance

per day through the ration. The food includes rice, salt, sugar,

wheat soya blend, pulses and oil. This ensures their daily

nutritional requirements are met.

When I arrived in Cox’s Bazar several refugees had complaints

and suggestions for how the distribution could be improved.

Unfortunately there was no avenue for their input to be heard.

Increasing participatory governance of the general food

distribution was therefore significant. With the help of WFP staff

and UNHCR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for

Refugees), we developed Food Management Committees in the

two camps. These committees comprise of representative refugee

males and females, who represent their community in observing

the food distribution, giving feedback to WFP and helping to

disseminate information.

Listening to the concerns of the refugees can often be demanding

and emotionally draining. However, the challenge of increasing

refugee participation in decision-making is rewarding. It

encourages greater leadership and responsibility for a population

who have relied on food relief for nearly two decades.

Developing Livelihoods So Refugees Govern Their Economic Future

It’s a passion of mine to help others take charge of their own lives

and future. As WFP is moving from the paradigm of food aid to

food assistance, I am delighted that my passion can be put to

good use.

The rationale behind developing livelihoods for the refugees lies in

the longevity of the refugee operation, which has often resulted in

the over-dependency of refugees on international aid. Of course,

it is unreasonable to rely on donors to fund food relief for the

refugees indefinitely, particularly in the face of high food prices

and the global financial crises. A focus on refugee livelihoods

also has the effect of increasing vocational skills and household

incomes for food and non-food items. Programs for the refugees’

self-reliance are therefore a significant step in providing a durable

solution for them.

However, government restrictions on economic activity and

freedom of movement has limited the economic productivity of the

refugee population. As the focal point for livelihoods in our WFP

Sub-Office, I am keen to find innovative solutions to improve the

long-term food security of the refugees.

In 2009, one livelihoods programme by WFP was innovative

enough to overcome the pressing challenges. The Pickles Project

was designed for vulnerable women, teaching them vocational

skills on pickles production and entrepreneurial skills for selling

their produce.

These pickles are a popular snack in the region and the women

were enthusiastic about the training because it allowed them to

work from home. This meant they could take care of any children

while they made or sold pickles. It also meant they did not have

to go outside of the camps, as the refugees are often restricted

from doing so by the government. Helping vulnerable women gain

economic influence at home and in the community is important for

gender empowerment in their community.

In 2010, we envisage greater coordination amongst the UN

agencies and international NGOs, in order to fill gaps and

strategically enhance the self-reliance of both the refugee

community and the local host community of the Cox’s Bazar

District.

This Page :

Matthew Alberto

Opposite PAge :

Dean Saffron

12 13

14 15

Photo Credits :

Calendar launch –

Michelle Eaton

Michelle Eaton is a VIDA Volunteer working to support

the Vanuatu Ministry of Justice and Community Services

to strengthen community partnerships and implement

crime prevention initiatives. Michelle is also a member of

the Women Against Crime Committee and has been a key

player in the coordination of the Neighbourhood Watch

Program. Here she outlines the work of the Women Against

Crime group.

The Women Against Crime (WAC) group is a multicultural

women’s organisation, which formed in January 2008 after an

increase in property and violent crime in Port Vila, in particular,

focusing on women. These concerns were discussed and raised

by WAC to the National Crime Prevention Forum and, as a

result, the Women Against Crime Committee was formed. One

key recommendation of WAC was to form a Neighbourhood

Watch (NHW) and Community Safe strategy. In August 2008,

WAC formed and developed strong ties with the Vanuatu Police

Force Crime Prevention Unit and the National Crime Prevention

Office. Early support was provided by Supt Vake Rakau and John

Taleo and this support has continued with the newly appointed

Commissioner Joshua Bong and Officer Commanding Police

District South Supt Kelson Bule.

One of the early tasks saw a joint WAC and VPF presentation

to the Malvatumari Chiefs Nakamal on crime trends, future

crime prevention strategies and the potential support for of a

Neighbourhood Watch/Community Safe Program. The joint

presentation was supported and lead by the Director General

of the Ministry of Justice and Community Services, Mr Joe

Ligo. Guests included the Chinese and French Ambassadors,

Commissioner of Police, various heads of Government, senior

police, chiefs, elders and the community. The outcomes of

the presentation saw high level government and community

support to pilot a neighbourhood watch program in the area

of the Freswota community. From there, a NHW/Community

safe strategy, led by WAC, formed a stakeholders committee

and began to work with the Council of Chiefs and Freswota

community. Freswota was chosen for the pilot program due to

its large mixed island population and emerging crime issues.

The community also already had an established Chief system in

place, however had not actively involved police in their community

groups.

The initial NHW program saw a community survey conducted

by WAC with local chiefs to assist in identifying community

issues and potential remedies to those problems. The survey

identified the need to forge closer police/community relations in

the Freswota community to enhance the relationship between

the community and the police to allow maximise crime prevention

and reduction. Once this was identified, Women Against Crime

began worked with the Council of Chiefs to form individual NHW

groups where they introduced a Police Officer to the groups.

These meetings allowed a forum for various issues and concerns

to be directed back to the senior VPF officers to develop policing

responses. These meetings also provided a forum for VPF officers

and WAC coordinated community groups to present to the chiefs

and the community on key crime prevention issues including

property crime, marijuana, trespassing, domestic violence, wilful

damage to property, parenting issues and lack of respect. Several

newsletters were also distributed throughout the community

outlining various crime prevention strategies. All of the NHW

individual meetings and group presentations have been held at the

Freswota School after gaining strong support from the community

and school leaders. Some of the positives that have come out

of NHW have seen police go into the schools to present to the

children on child abuse, drugs and personal safety strategies, the

setting up of a “car wash” business for a Freswota youth group

to allow refocusing of anti social behaviour, police implementing a

property engraving register and a community notice board in the

market place.

The WAC group have been supported and encouraged along

the way by the Ministry of Justice and Community Services and

as of June 2009, have been included in the Ministry’s five year

strategic planning to work together with Crime Prevention and

other stakeholders for a safe and harmonious community. The

latest strategy, lead by WAC and supported by the Ministry of

Justice, is the creation of a Community Safe Handbook, which

provides accessible information for each household to be shared

with family and friends. The handbook will feature information

on how to set up a Neighbourhood Watch group, home safety,

fire safety, medical emergency information, personal safety,

safe parenting, safe driving, safety on the social scene, the

issue of drugs and alcohol and referral and emergency contact

numbers. The aim of the handbook is to raise awareness amongst

members of the community to allow a better understanding

of these social problems and know who they can contact to

obtain the right advice. In compiling this resource kit, it has

made various organisations aware of the community’s need for

information whether it be delivered in a handbook or provided by

a presentation. This booklet will provide long term information in

Bislama and result in better informed community leaders.

Throughout WAC’s work in the community, various women’s

groups have expressed the need for more information on

domestic violence, parenting information and drug use and

misuse awareness. The WAC group are all volunteers and include

women from various cultural and ethnic backgrounds such

as child’s rights and early childhood development, journalism,

policing, and women’s organisations. The group is chaired by

Jenny Ligo and has recently become a nationally recognised and

registered NGO. They have recently launched their 2010 calendar

which features the community, police, women, chiefs and youth all

working together to create a harmonious community.

Future visions for 2010 will see the Women Against Crime group

go further into other communities, supporting the Ministry of

Justice and Community Services, the Crime Prevention Unit,

and other organisations throughout Vanuatu to deliver crime

awareness, better parenting advice and education on personal

safety.

Governance

16 17

VIDA Volunteer Emma Miall, Communications and Development

Capacity Building Officer with Plan International, highlights

campaigns raising awareness of children’s rights.

“Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not

see,” famous civil libertarian John Whitehead once said.

As a VIDA Volunteer working in Communications at the child-

centered NGO, Plan International, I’ve been given the precious

opportunity to strengthen those messages and rally the global

community to listen to them.

Through my time at Plan, I’ve learned children are very good

ambassadors for change if they feel protected and encouraged to

speak up. However, in Asia, many cultures discourage children’s

involvement and often punish it. For instance, in my new home

country, Thailand, a traditional proverb is ‘If you love your cow,

tie him up; if you love your child, beat him.’ What we consider as

physical abuse in Australia is not considered detrimental here.

It is discipline. Corporal punishment is deeply entrenched in the

school practice and social attitudes of many Asian countries. In

fact, sixteen countries have no law prohibiting the use of corporal

punishment in schools.

It is in this climate we launched our Learn Without Fear Campaign

to end violence in schools. Under the campaign, the Young

Hearts youth media project was implemented to raise children’s

awareness of their rights and to empower them to express their

views through media as a way to bring about social change. We

provided media professionals to train the children and equipment.

However, they were first taught to understand their potential.

This helped them to eliminate negative thoughts of discrimination

based on where they live, gender and even how they dress. Then,

the children learned from professionals how to produce media,

including visual art, theatre and film. I was lucky enough to visit

the stateless hill tribe children of Santikiri learning centre, in the

Giving Voice to Living Messages

18 19

Photo Credits :

Sardi Calver

Rural Development

foothills of Chiang Rai and watch the film they produced under

Young Hearts, ‘The End of the Road Never Reached’. “This film

is about hill tribe children who have no citizenship,” producer

Mong, 17, who is stateless herself, told me. “It is the story of a

girl who tries to get into higher education but she can’t because

she has no citizenship. We made it to show how the hill tribe

people try to get their citizenship because a lot of people in this

area have no citizenship or ID and it becomes a big problem for

us to access our rights.” Production crew member, Pui, 17, also

stateless, added, “The movie can tell everyone how, because we

don’t have citizenship, hill tribe people are not treated the same

as Thais despite the fact we really are Thais.” Mong and Pui were

able to show their awareness-raising film to a wide audience of

community members and policy makers. It was also broadcast

on national Thai television. Their production team is known as

Chopsticks. “We call ourselves Chopsticks from the idea that

when you’re doing work, people have to help each other so it’s

like chopsticks. If you have only one, you cannot do much, but if

you have two to come together and unite then you can do a lot of

things,” Mong told me.

Our Young Hearts project was also active in Bangladesh, India,

Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam. As a result, the students

produced a large showcase of youth media, including films,

television and radio pieces, musical performances and recordings,

short stories and poems, theatre productions, comics and

posters, all of which expressed their experiences of violence

in schools. The Young Hearts Youth Arts and Media Festival

was born. Artists from all countries were brought to Bangkok

in October last year for a major exhibition of their work held in

Siam Square. It was the climax of the youths’ journeys from

experimenting with their new media skills in their rural communities

to exhibiting their media productions to an international audience.

For some of the children, it was the first time they had met

children from another country. For others it was the first time they

tried food made anywhere other than in their remote village. The

strange sights and flavours enchanted them.

My role in contributing to the success of the festival was in

producing press releases, researching government education

policy in the thirteen Asian countries we work in, rallying as many

media to attend as possible, writing exhibition materials and

making the festival as far-reaching as possible. I had worked very

hard on the Learn Without Fear campaign launch six months

earlier. All major press outlets had emailed me confirming their

attendance, then, on the day, there was a major PAD protest in

the middle of Bangkok and all the journalists rushed to cover it,

leaving our campaign message to reach a somewhat depleted

audience. (The unrest of the first year of my VIDA placement has

also seen an assassination attempt on the Prime Minister, Abhisit

Vejjajiva, rioting at the ASEAN summit and a takeover of Thailand’s

international airport. Never a dull moment.) So, I was praying for

a slow-news day when the festival opened. Then we heard Thai

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva had accepted our invitation to

speak at the festival.

The festival opened to a huge audience and Abhisit arrived,

intact, and lent his voice to the youths’ call for their right to an

education free from fear. He toured the exhibition and then joined

the children in a social media workshop where he answered their

questions online via his Twitter account, demonstrating in real time

how social media can be used to spread a message to the world.

He then signed a Pledge of Support, promising ‘to support young

people as they raise their voices through youth media and to help

end violence in schools’.

The festival was a huge success and attracted great interest

from local and international media. The children themselves

learned a lot and emerged empowered. “Young Hearts gave us

an opportunity to meet and interview high-ranking government

officers, such as the Minister of Education. We asked him how he

planned to prevent and solve the problems of violence in schools.

I don’t think adults can solve all of the problems at once but at

least I am proud that our little voice can get adults’ attention on

the issues,” said Panuwat from Thailand.

This year at Plan, we prepare to launch our Because I Am a Girl

Campaign, to fight gender inequality, promote girls’ rights and

lift millions of girls out of poverty. Mong from Chopsticks is in

production of her fourth film.

“Now we will continue to make movies and teach friends. Helping

children from other sub-districts to learn how to make media.

My next movie is about the experiences of girls. It will be a good

resource for us because it will create many opportunities for us

to learn and go to university after we finish high school. I never

thought I would be able to make a movie and right now, I’m the

one who is doing it. It has been life changing. It has changed

my thinking and made me grow as a person and has taught me

that I can do things. Anything is possible.” That is one powerful

message ready to reach the world.

Governance

Previous Page: Young Hearts Youth media artists

Right: Emma Miall with youth artists in Srisaket

Far Right: Emma Miall at Santikiri Learning

Centre, Chiang Rai

Photo Credit: Emma Miall

20 21

VIDA Volunteer Alexandra Jones introduces an element of

her work as a Legal Support Officer in Cambodia.

“So what is it exactly I’m doing here?”

22

Rural Development

23

Previous page – Training Dance-off

This Page Top: Training youth group

Bottom: Theary and Alexandra

Opposite: Vichet Training

Photo Credit: Alexandra Jones

‘So what is it exactly I’m doing here? Community Legal Education

and Training’

I’m working in a Non-Government Organisation (NGO) called

‘Bridges Across Borders South-East Asia’. The name may not

mean much to you, though you’d be forgiven for thinking it

sounded vaguely familiar given that borders and bridges seem to

be all the rage amongst NGOs these days. Unlike the engineers or

doctors though, BAB is about working to dissolve imagined and

imposed borders separating us; things like poverty, injustice and

inequity by supporting local struggles for social justice, equitable

development and the protection of human rights.

BAB’s work in Cambodia involves a range of diverse but

interrelated programs including rural development, child

protection, public health programs and even a renowned hip-

hop education centre. My time in the VIDA program has seen

me placed in BAB’s Community Empowerment and Legal

Awareness (CELA) program with a tight knit team of talented and

passionate Cambodian lawyers and community organisers and

trainers. Together, the team does a mixture of legal advocacy and

community legal education, with a particular focus on issues like

housing rights and forced evictions, which are a big problem in

Cambodia at the moment.

Leaving behind the rarefied air of a large corporate Sydney law firm, community legal education was not something I’d given a great deal of thought to. That was until I found myself in week one of my assignment attempting to introduce myself in broken Khmer to 30 energetic community representatives from all over Cambodia who’d just been conducting a ‘dance-off’ with much hilarity, in the name of learning about human rights.

With my nifty new digital SLR purchased days before leaving

Australia, I found myself designated official photographer of

the training. No issues with placing a lens before these guys –

photography for donor reporting seems to be common place

here. The new blonde girl with the big camera was the source of

much curiosity, so I was relieved when a last minute effort to get

some large prints produced for display on closing day proved

to be a big hit! I certainly didn’t foresee the day when shirtless

indigenous community members would be engaged in heated

discussion about who would get to take home the results of my

photography.

This experience was the start of what I’ve come to learn about

producing, utilising and disseminating curricula on issues like land

and housing rights, safety and security of human rights defenders,

and gender and domestic violence during my time with BAB.

Little did I know in my first week just how intimately I’d become

acquainted with the finer details of my own curriculum project,

tying together the work of past interns and volunteers to produce

and publish an ‘Introduction to Law and Democracy’ manual

targeted at Cambodian youth.

So aside from dance-offs, what does community legal education

look like in a country where systemic shortcomings in the legal

system continue to see ‘governance and rule of law’ made

an international aid priority? In a nutshell, it’s about the least

empowered in society gaining an awareness of their legal rights. In

practice, it means working at a grassroots level with communities

that may have limited literacy to provide highly participatory

lessons, with lecturing minimised in favour of interactive games,

role plays, drawing, presentations and group discussion. The

methodology draws on ‘street law’ initiatives that have been

successful in places such as the USA and South Africa. Curricula

are also written so that anyone can pick them up and teach them.

This is all about that ‘capacity building’ stuff - but in summary, we

write them and then train village representatives and leaders how

to teach them so they can go back to their communities and pass

the messages on.

From my initiation to a room full of giggling old men learning

how to defend housing rights, I’ve probably spent half my time

with BAB this year engaged in community legal education work.

Sometimes that means drafting (and re-drafting) simple lessons

that will be translated for teaching topics as fundamental as

‘why do we need law’ - something I’ve learnt is much harder

and time consuming than it looks. Travelling to the provinces to

watch those lessons be taught (and run smoothly) before a room

of eager Cambodian teenagers is somewhat akin to a proud

mother watching her child go off on the first day of school; nerve-

wracking but awesome!

When work involves monitoring my colleagues conducting

training (with our interns ably assisting translation), it’s a matter of

providing feedback, suggesting improvements and, of course, that

essential part of NGO life – reporting to donors that their money is

being well spent. These days I always make sure I also arrive early

enough to participate in the dance-off!

Working in community legal education and witnessing the process

of empowerment in action is not only inspiring, but gives me a

great sense of pride and appreciation for my colleagues who work

tirelessly to share their knowledge and skills in the field of human

rights, while also proving this can be a great deal of fun.

So what is it exactly I’m doing here?

Governance