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/ |
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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