Being Productive! (sorry no pictures for this one)

Today, we were originally going to conduct some interviews, but Soveourn could not be with us since he had a death in his family. So instead of letting the day go to waste, we decided to take some the initiative ourselves. Micah, Aryn, and I took a tuk-tuk out to Orin Ou district to find out the prices that chickens were selling at. This is what we found out:

            Pork: 14,000 riel/1Kg

Morning Glory (water lily stems): 500 riel/2 bundles

Canned fish: 1800 riel/can

Carrots: $1/1Kg

Eggplant: 3500 riel/1Kg

Rice: 3,000 riel/1Kg, 2,000riel/1Kg

Chickens:

Regular eggs: 10eggs/6,000 riel

Rice and Salt coating: 10eggs/7,000 riel

Pickled eggs: 10eggs/7500 riel

Chicken sold by butcher

Chemically fed chickens: 11,000 riel/1Kg

Naturally fed chickens: 21,000 riel/1Kg

Villagers sell the chickens to the butcher for 15,000-16,000 riel/1Kg

Chicken feed (chemical):

For small chickens: 2,800 riel/1Kg

                        For big chickens: 3,000 riel/1Kg

                        For egg-producing hens: 2,500 riel/1Kg

At the same time, Raza and Paige stayed behind and started the project proposal, compiled the information about the chicken prices from the interviews, and interviewed the staff to found out about opportunities for the GROW team next year to help BSDA. Overall, it was an extremely productive day, and I am proud of what the team accomplished.

Thursday, 02/08/2013

 

Instead of doing interviews with Soveourn, today we interviewed families from the Puna Krai district, Spaen Charey village, Don Teai village with Sothea (the guy in charge of monitoring and evaluation at BSDA). Only Aryn, Micah, and I went to do the interviews. Today, we asked more questions about the problems with the chickens and whether they are actually helping the beneficiaries. We interviewed 3 beneficiaries. Here are some things that we found:

·      Beneficiaries are not portioning their loan out properly. Many times they have to spend their own money on chicken feed and other materials

·      Some families buy ducks along with chickens with their loan

·      Training has not been adequate, since it is completed by Soveourn

·      Somalen was the previous community support officer- since she quit, Soveourn has only visited the community once, instead of once a month

·      The project is NOT helpful to beneficiaries in this community

·      Many people do not have motivation to continue to raise the chickens or pay back the loan

·      The team leader is very important in the loan process

Overall, these interviews gave important insight on how the project is not helping all the beneficiaries. In addition, it really shed light on the fact that BSDA is not following up after giving the loans out to beneficiaries.

Back at the SMILE restaurant, Raza and Paige compiled all the excel information, finished the project proposal, and finalized questions to ask the BSDA staff members when we do our final presentation.