The Rural Livelihood Initiative

1. Project Title:      Improving Rural Livelihoods 2007/2008

2. Project Location:  At the Cyclo Centre Phnom Penh

3. Project Duration: (with proposed start and end dates):

        1 March 2007 to 30 April 2008

4. Brief Project Summary: (Background, Operational procedures and Activities)

The on-going programme will seek to help support cyclo drivers' families in their home  provinces through diversifying income sources from family or commune land and extending the skills of both the drivers and their families.

5. Objectives of Project

a) To select and train a group of cyclo drivers to develop rural livelihood skills such as animal husbandry, crop intensification or diversification, or fish farming.

b) To encourage these drivers to implement their new skills through  developing new  income-generating activities with their families on family or commune land.

c) To encourage these cyclo drivers and their families to work together in clusters in selected rural areas and then pass the skills learned to other rural families or communes.

By enabling cyclo drivers to earn sufficient income from their farms to support their families, and by making this information available to many, the long term goal of this project is to reduce the number of cyclos in Phnom Penh and reduce poverty among all cyclo drivers.  The Cyclo Centre will work with the agreement of Village and Commune Chiefs to ensure the programme receives support form the authorities in the target areas.

6. Key Activities of Project

a) Organizing weekly group meetings of interested cyclo drivers at the Cyclo Centre

b)  Selection of participants (15 cyclo drivers)

c)  Training participants in identified skills

d)  Organising visits to areas where projects have been implemented to encourage implantation of new skills.

e)  Setting up a credit loan scheme to start new activities

f )   Monitoring new activities

g)  Monitoring the credit loans scheme

h) Evaluating the personal success and sustainability of the rural livelihood project through visiting on an outreach basis

i)  Monitoring the success in the programme through measures to evaluate the projects objectives and key activities

j)  Organizing   inter-village exchange  visits  among  the cyclo  group

k)  Reporting  on  the  beneficiaries  overall  success  and on the likely sustainability of the project in the Cyclo Centre’s 6 monthly Activity and Annual Reports

To achieve this the Cyclo Centre Phnom Penh intends forming a partnership with a local NGO, CEDAC (Partnership for Development in Kampuchea), to run a pilot programme on rural livelihoods for 15 selected cyclo drivers. Selected drivers will receive extensive training and support in one of these subject areas:

a)  Animal husbandry and raising livestock

b)  Fruit and/or vegetable cropping and crop diversification

c)  Fish farming

All the selected participants will first attend the course on agricultural literacy, which will be followed by intensive practical instruction in one of the three subject areas.

All training will take place in or near the cyclo drivers' home villages either in Svay Rieng Province or Prey Veng Province. More than 50% (740 at March 2006) of Cyclo Centre members come from these 2 provinces. On completion of the training and follow-up, these cyclo drivers will be able to increase the skills of others in their provincial area. Where a cyclo driver's wife, or other responsible immediate family member, is the main rural livelihood earner, that person will also be involved in the training.

After training, follow-up in the form of monthly discussion and monitoring meetings will be held in the cyclo drivers' local areas in order to ensure that progress is on track.

On completion of the training, the drivers will be able to borrow up to a maximum of $100 to purchase livestock (e.g., chickens, pigs,) seed and plants, equipment and materials (e.g., to build a pig house or make a fish pond). Loans will be repaid within agreed times and repayments will either be:

a) Repaid to the donor

or

b) Used to assist with further rural livelihoods training

Early discussions with CEDAC indicate their willingness to work with the Centre on the project and have enabled the Centre to set a provisional budget based on CEDAC's indicative costing and advice. The total amount being sought to support this project is $5080.00 and negotiations are now taking place with a potential donor.