How Capacity Building Shape Women in Disadvantaged Communities: through Class and Culture Lens5/4/2017 Capacity building in women empowerment programs is always one of the “politically-correct” activity in NGO arena. Meanwhile, the capacity building process actually is an interaction between different classes and cultures. Capacity building is a process for people to master certain skill, knowledge or mindset to meet certain requirements. It is fundamentally a behavioral change process. It is embedded with the idea that there’s a gap between the current status of capacity and the ideal level where capacity building is needed. Community capacity building often refers to strengthening the skills, competencies, and abilities of people and communities in developing societies so they can overcome the causes of their exclusion and suffering.However, it should be noticed that from whose point of view, the status quo have been problematized and the ideal status have been defined. Originally, the idea of “problematization” theory from Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World” and pointed out that in the process of providing social service, middle-class discovered and created “problems” and utilized the social welfare system to force women from disadvantaged groups to become the needed group in social service and programs. In the relationship of the helper and the helpless, there are always the gaps between local culture and foreign culture, the urban culture and the countryside culture. Thus, in the process of capacity building, it should be noticed that the power distance exist. That's why, in many community developments, community assessment, empowerment programs, social workers and other NGO professionals are always paying attention to motivate the locals to decide for themselves and drive change for themselves, or there will be an enforcement of ideas and value.
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Cambodia is well-known for its large number and diversity of NGO. According to “Social Enterprise in Cambodia: An Overview”, only in 2011, around 3,000 NGOs were registered with the Ministry of Interior. Among these NGOs, a large proportion of them claims to be social enterprises, which are working for education, gender, environmental, humanitarian, etc. through business approaches. A very prominent kind of social enterprises unique to Cambodian society is called “work integration social enterprise”[1], which provides job opportunities with training, internship or employment services. Social enterprises like this work in Cambodia are considered successful for the large scale of people they served, the self-sustained business model and the continuous presence in communities. Innovative Models of Social Enterprises in Cambodia Mith Samlanh ("Friends" in English), founded in 1994 has been an NGO working with street children in Phnom Penh. They are under the umbrella of Friends-International which defines itself as “a leading social enterprise saving lives and building futures of the most marginalized children and youth, their families and their communities in South East Asia and across the world”. Mith Samlanh works with Friends-International related restaurant, beauty salon and souvenir shops in providing “shelter, medical care, training and educational facilities for over 1,800 homeless, vulnerable or abandoned children each day”[2]. Mith Samlanh not only provides well-designed skills-training according to market needs to marginalized youth within 9-12 months, but also find the youth employment opportunities in cities and back in their hometown. Benefited from the network of Friends-International, all the training restaurants and salons[3] like “Friends The Restaurant”, “Romdeng Restaurant” and “Nailbar” enjoyed high reputation on media and Trip-advisor, which endorse students’ potential and skills for future job placement. Phare ,established in 1994 in Siem Reap, trains local marginalized student through free vocational education into the young artist, performer and employees in circus, musicals, and visual art who can support their own living. Phare is a social enterprise integrating an NGO school of Phare Ponleu Selpak (PPSA) in Battambang and a business wing of the circus, shops, and studio. According to its own description on the website, PPSA was started “by nine young Cambodians returning home from a refugee camp after the fall of the Khmer Rouge”, as they found art be a powerful tool for healing. They provided free painting classes to street children, which later extended to formal K-12 education and professional arts training[4]. Over 1,200 pupils attend the public school and 500 attend the vocational arts training programs every year. The business part of Phare Performing Social Enterprise (PPSE), including the Cambodian Circus, Phare Productions International, and Phare Creative Studio was created for financial self-sufficiency, and create decent employment opportunities for Cambodian artists. With nightly professional shows 365 days a year, stories covered by CNN, The Guardian, BBC News, AFP, Phare enjoys fame and attention home and abroad. It is always among the must-see lists for foreign tourists. Strong Social Sector v.s. Weak Public and Private Sectors The status quo of social enterprises is like a mirror that might reflect rooted factors of the general environment, to name but a few, a systematic social sector under influence from overseas versus fragmented local governmental and corporate; the imbalance between the huge influx of foreign investment and growth of human capital. Ineffectiveness of Public Education and Corporate Employment Although the “work integration social enterprise” that provides job opportunities with training, internship or employment services proves to be an impressive model, it reflects the ineffectiveness of public education and corporate employment. On the one hand, the phenomena that social enterprises covering basic-education, vocational training reflect the lack of qualified public education. First, the public are not aware of the importance of education. As a high school teacher in a village near Siem Reap commented, the families still did not support children to go to school. Most of social enterprises pay families to get their kids educated. Then, even for those who can go to primary school, due to lack of good teachers after Khmer Rouge, said by a foreign professor in Cambodia from Japan, students felt disinterested in learning and dropped out of school easily. The whole system of vocational schools is not fully established, most of the young people do not have access to job-skills training. On the other hand, there aren’t enough corporate opportunities for young workers. Although many opportunities opened after the influx of foreign investment in Cambodia in latest years, overseas corporates have high requests for worker while are reluctant to train the locals, commented by a local business owner. Foreign companies would rather bring in their own workers than hired local unskilled ones. Over-Popularity of Social Enterprises When noting the underdevelopment of government and corporate, a chief staff from a leading INGO said, it reflects the incapability of social sector to support the government and corporate, and sometimes the social sector takes too much power from the other two sectors. For example, in terms of human capital, the presence of social enterprises attracts talents from governmental jobs with better-paid positions. In terms of fields of power, most of the social enterprises are invested by foreign NGO which has enabled domestic institutions to disregard certain responsibilities. Social Enterprises in Cambodia under Foreign Existence Cambodia has the largest number of foreign NGOs per capita in the world. The prosperity of social enterprises in Cambodia is also highly under the influence of foreign existence, in terms of the field of social enterprises, location and human capital. The fields that social enterprises serve is highly related to the flow of foreign direct investment. In 2012, Foreign Direct Investment in Cambodia grew by 73% according to Word Investment Report. Tourism blooms as FDI goes to service sectors like restaurant and hotels, later beautician. Most of the social enterprises focus on this field as well. Among 46 "work-integration" social enterprises in Cambodia, more than 60% are tourism related. Since December 2011, foreign people can have the power of renting as long as 50 years, foreign social enterprises have more power in developing tourism. In terms of areas, according to a KPMG study, after 1989, Cambodia has over $25 billion of FDI. However, this investment caused inequality between cities and rural areas, and among different industries. FDI in Cambodia mainly goes to cities like Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, which put rural areas in an unequal status. For instance, according to socialenterprisecambodia.org, among 96 social enterprises in Cambodia, 59 are in Phnom Penh area, 23 in Siem Reap and 9 are in other places. In terms of effectiveness, most of the social enterprises that have an impact today have been established in the 1990s, they still keep solving problems that have been existing for two decades. As commented by an expert with twenties-years’ experience in community development and over ten years’ experience in Save the children Philippines and U.S., most of the NGOs and social enterprises working here did not have an exit strategy. They are keeping helping villages while the communities are still poor and problematic, and did not pay too much attention to developing local people’s skills. Programs are more focused on large-scale general training than leadership development among the local community. There were not enough leaders generated from the grassroots level. Even in some famous social enterprises, village women workers are doing the same work for more than four years in the same position. For training programs, students go back to their villages to start his or her own business. Even for professional staff working in enterprises community, local staff are not often included in managerial roles. More works on community development and systematic empowerment are expected from social enterprises than before. Although foreign existence in Cambodia witnessed growth of social enterprises and there's a huge influx of FDI continuously, the World Bank “forecast a slight dip[5] in the country’s economic growth rate by 2019 amid declining foreign investment”. As global credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Services has evaluated Cambodia’s B2/stable sovereign rating… the positives were offset by Cambodia’s 'very low' score on government effectiveness, rule of law and the ability to combat widespread corruption". The social enterprises, especially work-integration ones indeed provide employment, while it does not lead to large-companies. The government and corporate need to develop in the long run as well, or the development of social enterprise won’t fundamentally improve people’s living standards. [1] https://www.iap-socent.be/sites/default/files/Cambodia%20-%20Lyne%20et%20al.pdf [2] http://www.mithsamlanh.org [3] Friends-International also own or be in partnership with restaurant in Siem Reap: Haven, Marum and Nyum Nyum [4] They have classes in the areas of visual arts (illustration, painting, graphic design, and animation), theater, music, dance, and circus [5] https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/slowdown-in-gdp-growth-projected-for-2019-128024/ For a youth empowerment program, it has to answer these questions: -What is the key problem to solve in the community? -Who should be empowered? -What value, skills and knowledge should be empowered in order to solve the community problems? -How to empower effectively, through what activities, event and courses? What are the key problems of the community? First and foremost, NGO should be clear about what are the key problems to solve in the community or what particular problem NGO want to solve. It applies to different communities, from a specific community in the villages, to regional community cross borders, even to a global community. Some programs are catering for specific communities. For examples, Oxfam Thailand designed a Youth Transformative Leadership Development Program to solve women issues in Deep South of Thailand, namely, Pattani, Yala, Narathiwas Province. After years of effort in women empowerment, Oxfam found the real concerns in communities are economic pressure for household, drug issues especially among man and domestic violence especially among women. Thus, Oxfam decided to address these problems by holding a youth empowerment program to create a better future among the younger generation of boys and girls. It aims to help young boys and girls from primary school to teenagers work on community issues and understand the community problem, so as to chose a better way of life rather than follow the old path of their parents. Some other programs focused on regional issues shared by different communities. As many universities and organizations in Thailand, NIDA aimed at promoting a peaceful ASEAN. In schools alongside the bordering areas, many programs taught students to learn languages from other countries so as to promote mutual understanding. However, after careful research, NIDA found that some students were actually from migrant families from other countries. On the one hand, these families are not interested in their native language, while they want their kids to learn more Thai language and be better involved in a new community; on the other hand, local students are reluctant to learn a new language that they do not use. Thus, NIDA-ASEAN youth camp program orient the values that is needed for ASEAN. They want to have cultural activities in promoting all the spirit like mutual respect, mutual understanding and empathy among students from different culture backgrounds. Some programs are aiming to solve common concerns shared by different communities in different countries. Global youth empowerment organization like AISEAC and ENACTUS aimed at changing the world community into a better one. Although they both have programs in different countries, they focused on common SDG concerns. They help organize young people to live and work out of their original communities. They advocated values and modes to respect culture and life style in different social background, to be proactive in work and profession, to have more social awareness, to master different lens to see the world, and to play positive social impact. Although these traits and quality seem universal, they inspired countless thousands of young people to pursue pro-social causes in their own future lives and careers. After identifying the true community problems, next article will try to answer the target group in youth empowerment and values, skills and knowledge needed in empowerment.
As is discussed in last article “What we are talking about when we talk about youth empowerment”, youth empowerment is community-based and problem-solving oriented. It is an approach for NGO to solve community problems by empowering young people, in stead of solving the problems directly. The rationale behind youth empowerment project emphasizes the interaction between NGO, young people and the community. On the one hand, NGO and communities empower young people with skills, values and knowledge; on the other hand, young people also contribute back with community assessment and problem-solving solutions. By solving community problems through youth empowerment, there will be several benefits.
First of all, it can generate more social impact in terms of longer time and deeper involvement, compared with support merely from NGO to communities. As young people will be accompanying longer time, they can even help community problem solved when NGO leave. And for some sensitive issues like domestic violence or drug problems concerning the changing of mindset, sometimes external force is not so effective as that from within the family. Young people can serve a role to bring in new concept to their family. Second, it helps change the value and even social norms of the next generation, which gradually creates a new social environment spontaneously immune to the previous problems in communities. They can have a bond with their community members. As young people will grow up into adult, they will be the ones who are playing roles in society. Their social network can continuously support community causes and help the community solve existing problems. For example, some organizations work for LGBTQ like Hanoi Queer help the millennium of different genders to play, communicate and enjoy life together. By having a new life style embracing equality and diversity, they reshape the Vietnamese young culture and attitude towards LGBTQ community. Third, it helps NGO update community assessment with more details in collecting community needs. In some youth empowerment projects, young people can collect intangible social knowledge from the community and contribute back to NGO. It helps NGO to understand more about the community. For example, in some youth empowerment projects, students carried out life story interview within the village. They collected life stories among people of their grandmothers’ generation and dig out the immigrant history of the community, which help NGO to revaluate and assess the community needs. Youth empowerment is not only to develop individuals, but more focused on creating greater community change by enhancing individual capacity. Youth empowerment seems to be a broad term which can include many aspects related to youth. There could be different types of youth empowerment considering different livelihood goals, different beneficiary types and different beneficial outcomes. However, when looking at the big picture, different types of youth empowerment link with each other, all aiming to contribute to a better future. Youth empowerment not only benefits young people and their communities indirectly, but also collaboratively contributes to solving current problems and creating a better future. Youth Empowerment Focuses on People and Community Youth empowerment, though generally focused on the development of young people, is considered to be different from youth development, for development is centered on developing individuals, while empowerment puts more emphasis on development of each individual so as to generate change within a greater community.[1] As youth empowerment focuses more on both individual and community and their interaction and mutual-relationship, it is important to understand the community where the young live before coming up with youth empowerment programs. Youth Empowerment is for All Young People from Different Communities Youth empowerment programs vary as beneficiaries and communities differ. For a community vulnerable to drug abuse, the immunity of youth and alternative ways of living come to be priority, so as to prevent them from falling into the trap of drugs again. While for young university students in cities, how to help them find the meaning of life and integrate them into society is important. For young social entrepreneurs, how to empower them with better understanding about society and coming up with social solutions benefiting society is also the main task. There are two kinds of approaches, one is to help disadvantaged groups to live a normal life; the other one is to help the common people to live a more wonderful life. Though these two are usually considered as two different types of youth empowerment, they are related to each other. As Confucius’s saying suggested, “You Jiao Wu Lei”, meaning proper education is to bridge distinction between classes or races of people. Apart from the empowerment for young villagers, young drug addicts, garment factory workers, young professional, young social entrepreneur, young innovators within each community, it is also significant to empower them to understand each other. Though the baseline before empowerment is different, they will all live in the bigger community together. Young people are hungry for better options. Empowerment can help different kinds of youth to live a better life than before. When the good become better, they should help the disadvantaged to be good. Youth Empowerment is Problem-solving Based and Future-oriented Youth is the future human capital, decision-maker, social participants... Thus, youth empowerment in the big picture is to better influence and equip change agents in each community to get current problems solved and achieve a better future. As the then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon put it, “[T]he world now has the largest generation of young people in history…There is also a critical need to involve young people in decisions that will affect them…We cannot talk about sustainable development without the active involvement of youth…When we give young people decent jobs, political weight, negotiating muscle, and real influence in our world, they will create a better future.” The current 1.8 billion youth population could either represent a great human potential in good times or potential risk in bad conditions. When people say there’s a need for empowerment, there must be a gap to fill. The gap is generated from the difference between the status quo and the future. As the future opportunities and challenges evolve at the same time, past techniques and abilities cannot solve current problems. Are we sharing the same future? Although different communities might not share the same problems, it all requires future alignment and understanding about the same big picture. Two brief cases might be helpful for understanding the interaction between different empowerment programs. Two Cases from Thailand: Youth in Doi Tung and Students of Mass Communication Doi Tung used to be a place heavily destroyed by growing opium. With the help from Mae Fah Luang Foundation, people grew coffee instead. After years of effort, the place gradually got rid of opium, though faced potential risk from surrounding areas where opium still exists.For young people there, one of the top concerns is helping them find health and steady ways of living and to not repeat the miserable life of their parents and grandparents again.Thus, youth empowerment programs in Doi Tung focus on empowering young people to have “the attempt to do good things”, in work and in life. Young employees are encouraged to find better living for themselves, no matter what they choose: going overseas for contract jobs, working in big cities, working as tourist guides in different places. Besides, there’s telling-stories boot-camps to let kids in Doi Tung understand the past history in the community. Students also learn arts, singing class, community appreciation, etc. Young kids are taught to take photos, some of which later are shown in collections and exhibitions. As is believed in Doi Tung programs, “No one wants to be bad, but they do not have the option to do good”. All the extra school curriculum for students are held regularly to create drug immunity for students by demonstrating better choices of life. Students of Mass Communication from Chandrakasem Rajabhat University are empowered with mass-media skills to join in local community work and activities. During each semester, students worked as volunteers in the community and recorded what they’ve witnessed and experienced. During the past several years, students studied migrant workers from boarder countries of Thailand and multi-ethic and culture communities. The students are empowered to be people who are “ambitious, focusing on thinking process about social issues rather than only entertainment”. The department has a tradition to organize students in community volunteering, in several decade’s time, students contributed in doing construction for the community, helping arrange radio station and reading corners, building water system, teaching villagers to do extra-work like making dry fruit. In recent years, the trend emphasizes more on using students’ lenses to arouse more social consciousness. The youth empowerment process helped students address issues and situations in local communities, and encouraged students to use their access to resources to make a difference, which also changed their values, beliefs and attitudes. [1] Ledford, Meredith King; Lucas, Bronwyn (2013). "Youth Empowerment: The theory and its implementation". Youth Empowerment Solutions. Youth Empowerment Solutions. Retrieved November 21, 2015. What are the youth empowerment for the future? What are the special request for youth empowerment in South-East Asian Countries? What are the youth empowerment under different social background? Please join Ying’s journey on this blog or contact her via [email protected] as she further explore countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc. Although empowerment of young citizens can take varying forms, they shared some common trend despite of different countries and social context. Though these project are not limited to formal education at schools, concepts from classic civic education[1] theories like service learning, action civics, civic education through discussion, school as community and liberation pedagogy could still be borrowing to understand the basic characteristics. Service learning Service learning advocates that people should engage with community-at-large and integrate learnings with work within the community and is more related to volunteer services. And action civics is more of a guided experiential civic education. The following example of “rice bank” might serve as an apt illustration of service learning and action civics. The Shwe Inn Thu women self-help organization in Myanmar helped local women to better engaged in their community with empowerment project of “rice bank”. Just as Tocqueville put it, “town meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science”. By engaging in and organizing local community service, these women gradually became active participants in family life and even meetings in villages and township. Action Civics and Civic Education through Discussion Civic education through discussion encourages youth to speak out their thoughts in the effort to find common ground, i.e. debates are competitive discussions and way of training, which advocate critical thinking. For instance, Theik Khar Institute in Myanmar is to bring connections and provide opportunities for their students to learn about the world outside where? and use learning to reflect on the situation their surrounding communities and in Myanmar. The students coming from different backgrounds in one year’s time, making efforts to think out of their original culture background, frequently overcome their resentment towards other ethic groups in Myanmar, discussing real issues happening in the country. School as Community Although John Dewey’s philosophy to see schools (or other educational or training programs) as community is proposed under the background of participatory democracy in education, it could also be desirable in non-democracy to engage in “active inquiry and careful deliberation in the significant and vital problems” that confront their communities, and form real situation out of their active participation. In Denmark, Copenhagen Institute of Interaction conducted a design workshop that cultivate promising designer with future visualizing capacity so as to design what?? for future. In U.S., Code for America are training people with coding skills in terms of cultivating them with problem solving skills. Inle Heritage House Vocational School are supporting students through vocational training with network building and living improvements skills. Some of the students later became employees or hotel and restaurant owners in their community with awareness in sustainability and environment. In China, some private educational institutions emerge with the purpose to change skills and value set in future society by advocating student-centered way of learning, when advocating social responsibility, systematic thinking and nature education. Liberation Pedagogy As is stated in Paulo Freire’s liberation pedagogy, students should not be oppressed by teachers or schools, instead they should learn to be responsible citizens in class, even through interaction with their teachers. The “student-centered learning” and “flipped-classroom” will both be a way of doing in reality. For instance, instead of setting all courses from schools, universities in America are promoting the idea of gap year that students have the autonomy to fill their skill gap before entering the career and life. The above-mentioned concept is more from 20 centuries literatures and early 21 centuries’ practice, for the future trend, there might be more new forms as the world also changed rapidly. And whether these cultivation and empowerment is more universal or rooted in local context remains to be studied. [1] Civic education, according to Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, refers to “all the processes that affect people's beliefs, commitments, capabilities, and actions as members or prospective members of communities.” What are the youth empowerment for the future? What are the special request for youth empowerment in South-East Asian Countries? What are the youth empowerment under different social background? Please join Ying’s journey on this blog or contact her via [email protected] as she further explore countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc. Why I Start This Travel I always have strong interest in the cultivation of future change makers due to my personal experience and working background. I myself benefited from projects and events like “Harvard Summit for Young Leaders in China”, “Make A Difference in Hong Kong” and “Asia-Pacific Leadership Program”. And I worked for the cultivation of future change makers for the past five years in China, conducting case studies, designing empowerment programs, and facilitating the execution of these programs. I discover one of the most effective ways is to engage young citizens in practical work and life, just as is mentioned in John Dewey’s philosophy about education. For instance, some coding training programs in Silicon Valley and Hawai‘i Innovation Center empower people with problem-solving skills, some cross-culture programs train people with critical thinking skills, some consulting projects help people build analysis and decision-making capacity, which are all essential for preparing the people to become valuable members of a better future society. What I Want to Do in this Travel I would like to spend three-month-time in South-East Asian countries to see when the country and society is still undergoing drastic changes and facing many challenges, how can CSO, as one of the most important agents for changes in society, to educate, train and empower the young citizens. I hope to answer the following questions after this travel:
Ying will be traveling in the next three months in South-East Asian countries to visit youth empowerment organizations, Thailand in February, March in Vietnam and April in Cambodia. For any idea and suggestions, join her via [email protected].
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Ying ChenI'm dedicated to works for public good, after ten years' attention on social enterprise since high school, five years' professional volunteer work in pro-bono consulting and diversified experience in consulting, teaching, social media.etc. Archives
May 2017
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