Often in organizations, both for-profit and not, it becomes apparent that in order to move forward, you must first go backward. It may sound like ballroom dance instruction, but it is actually a season of internal auditing, honest assessment, and constructive criticism. It can be painful, but when done with a vision of improving – a sincere desire for quality assurance – it can be much like a good pruning that ultimately renders yet greater fruit.
When we look back at our work in Cambodia, in these first years, we see plenty of areas of which to be proud. We are humbled daily by the organizations and people we call friends and partners. The country’s leading sex-trafficking abolitionist, the nation’s largest pediatric hospital, the premier group serving Phnom Penh’s overwhelming street youth population - all are allies in the work to improve the lives of vulnerable children.
We also see areas that, simply put, need improvement. The most obvious deficiency in our Cambodia operation is the lack of a health and hygiene program built into our work. We’ve witnessed a small school of children drink from four shared cups. (That means that water which was made safe would ultimately be re-contaminated.) We’ve watched mothers soak the evening meal in contaminated city water when our purified water is close at hand (The lack of adequate training has left them ill equipped to see the myriad uses of the safe water at their disposal). When these devastating truths pile up, they begin to detract from the hard work of our staff and donors - and they aggravate and sustain a cycle of poor health amongst the populations we serve – the very thing we are working to change.
But there is good news. As we’ve grown organizationally, our ability to incorporate a more holistic approach to water justice has also grown. In 2010, a child’s right began collaborating with Nepal Water for Health (
NEWAH) to incorporate health and hygiene education alongside our water filtration interventions in Nepal. Not only did we work with twenty schools to provide clean water and hygiene education to students, the
acr staff had the opportunity to study directly under the tutelage of one of the country’s most respected implementers of hygiene education.
We know that we can do better in Cambodia. In order to do so, however,
acr first needed to make a big decision: to halt all new water projects in Cambodia. This is not what we planned going into the year. It’s not what we’ve budgeted for. And frankly, we’re still not quite sure how to fully articulate this to you, our supporters - but we know it’s the right, and only right, decision.
We’ll be using the rest of this year to learn from our peers; not only in the water sector, but anyone with proven knowledge of how best to serve children and those that care for children. We want to know how they’ve been successful and where they’ve failed. We’ll also begin doing something most aid organizations never seriously consider: we’ll listen to our current partners. They will tell us what we’ve done well, what we’ve missed, and how we can improve. No one knows better than they do.
Our goal is to take the information gleaned from
NEWAH and other hygiene-oriented groups, combine it with what we’ve learned from our peers and beneficiaries, and introduce a robust, unique health and hygiene education program that is able to be appropriately tailored to the specific needs of every partner site.
Every partner site.
We won’t begin with new installations; rather we’ll begin by returning to our very first installation. We will reengage with all sixty one sites that currently have an a child’s right water purification system in their possession. Every site will undergo a full, detailed assessment isolating the needs for (but not limited to) improved safe-water storage, trainings on and access to hand-washing with soap, education regarding hygienic food preparation, and (where appropriate) make recommendations regarding sanitation practices.
If a partner needs a hand washing and drinking station, we will build it.
If a partner has a broken hand washing station, we will repair it.
If a partner has an out-of-date purification system, we will replace it.
We will go backward to go forward, and with determination.
Our
acr Cambodia Program Manager, Kith
Rathamony, will oversee this new direction. And this new line of hygiene service will be the primary responsibility of our soon-to-be hired Health and Hygiene Coordinator in Cambodia. We currently estimate that four of our partner sites will need completely new water purification systems. We believe that roughly twenty will need all new hand washing and drinking stations, and that twelve currently have water stations which need retrofitting.
It is not our intention to move quickly through this process. We are prepared to, and plan on, taking all of 2012 to build this program well. Early forecasts suggest that a course correction of this magnitude will cost close to $99,000. So, as you can imagine, we did not make this decision lightly.
We already have backers.
acr is currently partnering with two groups who have agreed to cover nearly forty-three per cent of total project costs. Sixteen new water stations have been accounted for, as have all four new water purification systems. These donors see in us the ability to apply the integrity and ingenuity of our proven filtration system to the areas of hygiene education where we have been under-performing to date.
We at a child’s right couldn’t be more excited about this redirection in course. We know that there will be challenges along the way, but we are confident that this direction will help in fulfilling the goal of seeing that every child has a right to clean water.
If your interested in helping support this “step backward to step forward” in Cambodia, please don’t hesitate to be in touch with us: info@achildsright.org
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