Community Development and Empowerment as a Platform for Rights-based

Those PPs in both research sites who belonged to community-based

PPs’ roles and involvement in CBOs helped build their confidence and capacities to claim their rights and deal with rights problems. For example, their roles forced them to speak in front of people. The Farmer Field School (FFS) in each village is divided into geographical sub-groups, one of whose leaders said:

I dare [to speak in front of people]. Before, I was illiterate and did not really dare to speak to other groups; I did not dare to speak at all. After I participated in FFS and LWD, I was frequently invited to join the meetings. I can have some guts to speak. It can be said that after they asked me, I dared to answer and spoke better than before (Life story interview, Kunthea Oung, comments in brackets added).

Confidence in speaking in CBOs is the first step toward claiming their rights (Focus group (FG), Rottanak Kim). LWD fosters this kind of confidence so that their voices can eventually be heard, for example, in meetings for formulating a village development plan (Interview, Sophat Um 2). As another example, PPs’ roles in CBOs made them actually engage with rights problems such as domestic violence (DV). On one of the research sites, a secretary of a women’s group was invited, together with its two other members, by their village leader to join the arbitration processes for the DV cases:

In solving the problem, he allowed me to share with the conflicting parties the idea that women have rights and DV should not happen to women. Generally speaking, I explained to the men that they should give women their rights (Interview, Kolab Pen).

This kind of involvement is expected to increase their confidence and capacities to deal with rights issues, as Nielsen (2012) argues that CBOs can be a sustainable space for rights-based empowerment.

PPs’ roles as CBO members—whether it is about speaking in public or dealing with rights violation—may stretch their confidence and capacities to the limit. Such experiences could cause a disorienting dilemma (Mezirow, 2000) or the edge of knowing (Berger, 2004) towards TL. On the edge, people often need support initially: Berger (2004) states that “perhaps the best technique for supporting people at their growing edge is simply to provide openings for people to push against the edge and then be company for them as they stand at the precipice; once they are there, the growing edge is its own teacher” (p. 345). The CEFs’ continual presence in villages and thus frequent contacts with PPs are considered to provide such emotional support.

Regarding the direct interactions with duty-bearers, those PPs in both research sites who were members of CBOs, as well as LWD staff from every organisational level, stated that belonging to CBOs (particularly of village development committees (VDCs)) helped people grapple with commune councils (CCs) and district offices (DOs). This was because part of their responsibilities as CBO members required them to constantly engage with local government. One of the VDC members stated:

Before, I had not worked [as a VDC member]. [At that time] I did not dare to communicate or talk with the CC. After I worked as a village community chief [actually as a VDC member], I dared to speak and communicate with them because it is relevant to my work. So I must dare to speak and ask. And my communication [with the CC] is different from the one before. Before, I was just an ordinary person who dared not to ask and to communicate with the CC. After I worked [as a VDC member], I must get in touch with them for the work and the better development [of the village] (Interview, Jorani Tan 1, comments in brackets added).

Whilst their business matters with local government might be purely administrative, such as the announcement to villagers of the birth certificate registration procedure, the following unique case of another VDC member indicates that the discussion went beyond administrative tasks to include a casual yet substantive rights-based conversation:

They [the CC] called me to join, like I was called to join meetings, for example, the commune meeting. When I went there, they allowed us to ask questions, to wonder about and to ask questions about laws, something like that…So I started asking like, when laws were made and announced, how the laws were used, something like that. I just asked questions and they answered (Life story interview, Chean Huy, comments in brackets added).

The concepts of participation and addressing those in higher social strata are still

generally foreign in hierarchical Cambodia. Nevertheless, frequent interactions between local government and people are essential for RBA, since those “enhance…the

motivation of both to participate in decision-making and maintenance activities”

(Friis-Hansen & Kyed, 2009, p. 64). Here LWD created the spaces for such interactions or the spaces where PPs practise actually dealing with local government.

Participant observation in both research sites and LWD staff from every organisational level pointed out that PPs’ involvement in physical projects increased their capacities to claim their rights. LWD’s RBA manual confirms this fact:

Small socio-economic programmes are not only for economic achievement. Achievement is important because it builds confidence[,] making the next steps possible. The most important benefits are for the people to pinpoint the areas of exploitation, learn the process of planning and implementing, and above all practice decision-making as a community. (Lutheran World Federation Cambodia, 2009, p. 58).

It was interesting to hear from one of the sample CEFs (when she was working with one of the village leaders) that another village leader, with whom she used to work, put the following mark for the name of LWD in financial reports or receipts:

L

L is the common abbreviation of LWD used among PPs and the dollar sign with the upward arrow indicates that LWD used a large amount of money to improve his village. The improvement is not just about material and economic conditions, but also about the capacities of PPs. More concretely, LWD uses physical projects, which actually require considerable funds, as part of the capacity development of PPs. A good example of this is Village Partnership Projects (VPPs), mentioned already. VPPs do bring about

tangible benefits such as road and latrine construction, yet at the same time they

enhance the capacities of PPs to write a proposal, which is an essential part of claiming rights to development from CCs.