Nead of Phnom Penh
I woke-up with a very fresh feeling since I got to stay at the romantic Mountain Island Lodge. Then, everybody enjoyed a continental breakfast that was served at the lodge. It was highly warm welcome, and much attention was paid by the people who work there. They served us nice meals, refreshments, drinks, ice-cream etc. which made us enjoy staying, even just for a night.
The morning session was moderated by Dr. Terry Weidner, reflection and discussion more about Violence Against Women and the Law which was shared by panelists yesterday in the Holding Up Half the Sky conference at University Center. Many debates about domestic violence, work migration, gender equality and sexual assault and law procedure. Each participant shared their own experiences and knowledge related to the above topics. Moreover, a lot of good examples have been disseminated to justify the facts. As the conclusion, we were to come up with some ideas such as: Education opportunity for girls and women by looking at the school curriculum so that they can apply in their daily life, life skills education to promote their self-esteem, promote community campaign, mass media is required, reinforcement of law, educate on economic in order to prevent trafficking, labor force etc.
In the afternoon the session was moderated by Ms. Julie R. Sirrs, we have been divided as small groups by country to think about three questions:
1- What is your 20 year vision?
2- What are the three key things to get you there?
3- What is the leadership aspect to reach this vision?
Then, each group reported back to the big group, and I would like to select some of the points that Cambodia team have been found:
1- Vision – (i). High percentage of women with better literacy and life skills necessary to negotiate key life decision (ii) Have more number of girls and women with access to the justice system (iii) Get 30% of women involved in politics.
2- Three key things
- Educate People ( Direct and Indirect)
§ Direct – Enhanced lobbying of all related ministries, agencies, institutions to consider building human resources. This is the key priority especially, because the education sectors have to work very hard to build a foundation of young children from lower grades to make sure that they are able to read and write correctly and understandably-I mean to improve literacy. Provide capacity building training to relevant stakeholders, door to door meetings, and workshops with relevant topics.
§ Indirect – work with mass media to make sure people are aware of society issues, self-protection, utilize public services etc.
- Building Networking and Linkages with local and international agencies to share lesson learned and challenges for improvement or seeking for both technical and financial support.
- Law enforcement – all the justice system need to be implemented throughout the whole country.
3- Leadership – Building womens capacities so that they can be placed at the positions in which they could make decisions with full support from people around.
Below are some the response from other group;
Ø Having education opportunity
Ø Leadership forums
Ø Working on peer pressure
Ø Political, economic
Ø Gender mainstreaming in all level, propose gender budgeting in all field
Ø Promote role model in community level, household, promote self-esteem, women support groups
Ø Promote justice system, legal system reform if applicable
Ø Health care system, equal access to public health care, day care, pre-checkup
Ø Community campaigns
We finished the meeting at 3:30pm by taking group photos and returning to Missoula. Once, we arrived, we were gathered to have a group dinner at LoLo Steakhouse, where we had very delicious food.
