By Sok Chanraksmey – DPA
ALiSEA Network in Cambodia conducted the “Information and Proposal Writing Sessions for ALiSEA’s Small Grant Facility 2024” to provide detailed information about ALiSEA’s small grant and ease the application process for ALiSEA members in Cambodia. This event was organized on 30th August 2024 at the Poulo Wai Hotel and Apartment, Phnom Penh, under the co-organization of DPA, Uni4Coop, and GRET.
There were 29 attendees, 9 females, from 22 different organizations in the ALiSEA, including civil society organizations, private sector organizations, non-governmental organizations, farmer organizations, academic institutes, research institutions, and international organizations.
In this session happened with oral presentations which facilitated by Mr. PAT Sovann, ALiSEA National coordinator of GRET. First, Ms, SOK Chanraksmey, ALiSEA National Secretariat in Cambodia, provided the overview of the ALiSEA network and ALiSEA’s small grant to know about the vision, missions, and implementation activities of ALiSEA on promoting Agroecology and linkage to small grant topics. Afterward, ECOLAND, one of ALiSEA’s grantees in 2023, shared their experiences on the successful application and implementation of the small grant project research. This was shared by Ms. MAO Theara, Research Assistant of ECOLAND. Two special factors of ECOLAND succeeded in application in 2023 are (1) build a strong team and (2) chose topic that the whole team specialize. Additionally, Mr. CHEA Dara, Finance Manager of DPA, presented the financial procedure of a small grant. Last session, Mr. MEY Veata, program manager of Uni4Coop presented the application process and application form.
The small grant facility in 2024 is unique and more localize to the Cambodia context since we have only in Cambodia. All processes and document have been developed in Khmer and English version to ease the process and more inclusive to local organizations in Cambodia.