BREW CREW - Boys Respecting Empowered Women

Today's blogpost comes directly from Peace Corps Volunteer Rich Durnan's personal website http://richdurnanphoto.com/

Visit his website to learn more about his PC service in Cambodia.

On September 27^th, 28^th, and 29^th, several of the English Teacher Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) from Takeo and Kampot provinces, and their Cambodian teacher counterparts, invited 50 high school aged boys for a three-day Camp BREW (Boys Respecting Empowered Women). It’s a camp focusing on topics related to health, career planning, gender issues, and community engagement. These are topics generally misunderstood or overlooked in the public schools. Camp BREW allows attendees to be exposed to and discuss these topics in a safe environment, while they gain knowledge and skills in areas needed to succeed after graduation. It also allows a rare opportunity for Cambodian students from different provinces to meet and exchange ideas on how to better their communities. There is a similar all girls event put on by PCVs called Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World).

Sokhom Kourn translates for me during my alcohol use lessons

I was invited to teach a health related section at the camp. One of my secondary projects here is working with several other health volunteers to create a series of curriculum toolkits containing lessons on health topics. This was a great opportunity for me to pilot several of these lessons.

I presented on substance abuse, in particular alcohol use, a topic I consider very important here in Cambodia, and completely overlooked in the schools. 54% of Cambodians report having used alcohol in the last 30 days and men are 10 times more likely than women to heavily use alcohol. Cambodia currently has no minimum drinking age, and although they do have a blood alcohol limit for driving, it is not enforced. Alcohol is uncontrolled and can be obtained any place and by any one regardless of age. The only barrier to obtaining alcohol in Cambodia is money. There is tremendous peer pressure to drink alcohol, especially amongst men, which usually manifests in the form of binge drinking. A common phrase in Cambodia is “Drink to get drunk, and if you are not getting drunk, then why drink?”

With the help of a wonderful teacher Sokhom Kourn as my translator, my presentation began with a quick basic anatomy and physiology lesson explaining how alcohol is processed and its effects on the body.

Then, I led a discussion on the consequences of intoxication. We explored the ways that alcohol can affect many aspects of our lives such as financially, our health through harm to our health through disease as well as through accidents and increased risk for sexually transmitted diseases, and socially through our relationships including increased domestic violence.

I had the students play a spoon game. In this game, they close their eyes and spin 10 or 20 times to get dizzy. Then I ask them to walk a straight line balancing an egg on a spoon. The idea is to illustrate how alcohol alters our consciousness and coordination preventing us from doing tasks we normally can do effortlessly. The boys loved this, and they easily made the connection on their own to driving drunk. Road accidents are the number one killer in Cambodia, and alcohol accounts for more than half of traffic fatalities.

My presentation concluded with having the boys write a list of all the things they think they are good at. Anything could be on their list. Then I divided the boys into smaller groups, and had them create lists of things that they could do better together as a group. After the groups presented their lists, I guided them to see that as individuals, they have many strengths, and as a group, they have even greater strength to accomplish things in their lives. The intent was to foster greater confidence and self esteem, two qualities important to combating peer pressure. We finished with a discussion of peer pressure and its role in the abuse of alcohol.


Other topics covered in sessions over the course of the camp were study skills, reproductive health and sexually transmitted diseases, domestic violence prevention and prostitution, what it means to be a man, playing sports, and how to plan for your future.

The camp culminated in a field trip to the southern Cambodian beach town Kep.


Here we purchased 30 Kilograms of fresh blue crabs and had them cooked up for us along with fresh fish squid, and shrimp for a seafood smorgasbord. Many of the students had never seen the ocean let alone eaten this kind of food. They were all thrilled.


So were the teachers.

After lunch, we played soccer on the beach and swam in the ocean.


… and of course took a nap.

The Spotlight is on...ROS Kunthea!

ROS KUNTHEA. Photo courtesy of Our Strength website

Our interviewee today is ROS Kunthea. She is the director of the local development organization Our Strength in Battambang.
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“Your sex is from your body but gender comes from your community’s understanding. Women can be doctors, NGO managers, hard workers just like men; we just have to change our culture and communities.”

- Our Strength founder Ros Kunthea at Camp GLOW in Siem Reap. _____________________________________________________________________________________

Our Strength is a community based organization in Battambang that focuses on reproductive health and relational services for women in Cambodia. The name Our Strength calls upon Cambodian women to focus on the strengths they already have and show every day. It also focuses on utilizing that strength for the empowerment of all and to make the future brighter for Cambodian women. Our Strength has worked with Peace Corps on numerous Camp GLOWs, educational workshops, and nutrition trainings in past years. They have an energetic staff of young women led by Ros Kunthea, better known as Theary. Theary is the co-founder and current director of Our Strength.

Introduction:
My name is Ros Kunthea (Theary), Director at Our Strength NGO, I am 32 years old, I am married and have one son. I am currently four months pregnant. I originally come from Siem Reap province. I work with the women’s health team, and I teach reproductive health to women in the community. I also teach about domestic violence. I want women to know what services are available to them. My goal is for women to understand health. I want to educate them so that they can advocate for themselves. I want women to be able to protect themselves. In the future I also want to be a teacher at a university.


What activities related to Gender Development are you involved in? We have many activities. First we go to the villages to meet the village chiefs. It is important that we all work together. Then we do home visits so that we know how many women in each village have health issues. We plan for meetings with women in villages A village chief will gather women for us and then we prepare a workshop for the women. After, we talk with VHV’s who want training VHVs. The VHV’s help assist in the training with the Our Strength staff. We then offer to take those who are sick to the hospital.  We work in village communities by listening and responding to women’s health and social needs. After attending the workshops women have a better understanding of their health



How did you get to where you are today?
I have been with the program since its inception in 2009. My previous experience in community development and women’s health education includes work with Cambodia Health Education Development, Caritas International, and Siem Reap’s Catholic Church Rural Development Project. I was born and raised in Nong Chan refugee camp on the border of Thailand until I was 11, when I moved to Siem Reap with my adoptive mother and two brothers. Now. I am planning a future for my family, including my husband and son in Battambang. Service to women grows out of my experiences growing up in a refugee camp and resettling in Cambodia.

I observed women suffering disproportionately under the burden of war, displacement, food insecurity, and lack of access to basic health and education services. I am passionate about constantly improving the quality of Our Strength’s work by listening to women so that our programs may better support those without other access to health services or education. My hope is to see women grow in their knowledge, skills, and confidence, so that they can gain strength to protect themselves, their families and communities. I am especially committed to working towards Our Strength’s sustainability, by investing in staff education and capacity building, so that our organization may support itself by providing services to other organizations and groups in Cambodia.


What do you think is the most important issue facing Cambodians today?
I think reproductive health, sexual health, and gender and violence education are the most important issues Cambodia is facing. Many women and men are still shy and don't want to talk about their health problems or to talk other about the problems in their family. Other issues include

- Women’s knowledge of health issues are still limited. 

- Culture and social barriers about value and power are still affecting men and women.

- Many women think they should be submissive to their husbands.

- Many men use violence because they think this will earn money for the family. 

- Many women are afraid to do advocacy with men.


What kind of advice to you want to give the youth of Cambodia?
I want all the youth of Cambodia to try to study hard and not only study in school, but to find and learn more from other forms of information, social media, family, community, or other NGOs about health and other problems. Also, after they know how to help they are able to find a solution and share this with other people in their community.


What is your favorite thing about your country?
My favorite thing is its women and students, even though we have poor families we try to spend time to learn more about health and life.


Finally, I have confidence, even though my NGO is a small program, that we can help many people. Many women talk to me and explain that they were very happy with the workshops. Our Strength educates and shares knowledge to women. It helps give them information that they may have not known about before regarding their health from women of their same age.



Spotlight interview provided by Community Health Education PCV Nicholas Branch

Gender Empowerment Workshops: For the Boys!

As detailed in our previous post about Camp GLOW, a focus of many projects for Peace Corps Volunteers is gender empowerment. Building awareness about gender is not just something done with young women- a number of Volunteers work with young men to encourage action and change.

Ambitions students from BREW Crew 2012

One such example is a workshop entitled BREW Crew. BREW, standing for Boys Respecting Empowered Women, is a workshop for young men started in 2012.

BREW Crew has a main goal of broadening an understanding of gender for young men in Cambodia. Through this lens, the workshop spends time creating a safe space to discuss relationships with women, and how to engage them in ways that both respect and empower both genders.

Students working together at BREW Crew 2012

Beyond this, BREW Crew provides key knowledge about boys' own sexual health and the realities of engaging in sex with multiple partners, or taking advantage of the large centers for prostitution around Cambodia.

BREW Crew is one of the first workshops to center around gender empowerment and awareness just for men. There have been numerous other workshops that work with young men and women together to build gender empowerment, such as Camp BUILD and Camp Lost Stick.

BREW Crew 2012 - Having a good time!

Last year, BREW Crew was supported by six Peace Corps Volunteers through Takeo, Kampot and Kampong Som provinces. Nearly fifty young men joined the workshop, as did several NGOs such as RACHA.

BREW Crew 2012 ended with a trip to Kep in Kampot province

This year, BREW Crew is raising money to take place in the middle of June. The workshop will bring together five Peace Corps Volunteers, counterparts and nearly fifty young men from Takeo and Kampot provinces.


Article composed by Committee member: Kate Marsh, K5 Education Volunteer