Country: Cambodia; duration: 9 months, started in Feb. 2012; self-funded by FLD
Practical Skills for Community Work
Background of the program
FLD and it predecessor CLD (the Centre for Local Development) has been involved over several years providing training materials and support to local partners for distance education programs to train NGO and social/community workers in Myanmar and Cambodia. In 2009 FLD conducted its first online pilot-project with 15 Cambodian students, to assess the level of interest and the effectiveness of such an approach in the prevailing conditions in Cambodia. In 2010 FLD supported a similar approach in Myanmar and also promoting in NGO/community service circles innovative approaches such as Social Enterprise, Social Business as an attempt to achieve sustainability of programs and organisations otherwise continuously dependent on external funding. In 2011 FLD conducted a feasibility study in Cambodia to assess applying a distance/online/blended learning approach using the social business model , including the possibility of the targeted group to pay an affordable fee ($25), and strategies to promote enrolment in the program.
As a result, a program was launched in Cambodia in 2012 envisaged as a pilot-project that could be replicated in other countries, e.g. Thailand, Myanmar and Laos.
Foundation for Local Development 