Healing Health Program
We create sustainable access to health for child survivors of trauma in Cambodia. Focusing on nutrition, skill training and meditation in our garden.
About You
About You
First Name
Jayne
Last Name
Crow
Twitter URL
https://twitter.com/#!/Jaynecrow
Facebook URL
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Healthcare Center for Children
Organization Website
Organization Country
Cambodia, PP, Phnom Penh
Country where this project is creating social impact
Cambodia, XX, All provinces in Cambodia
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
More than 5 years
Has the organization received awards or honors? Please tell us about them
In 2005, all management committee members received awards from the government for recognition of our contribution to rebuild and rehabilitate the country. In 2008, Terri Ly (Executive Director) received a 2009 Future Summit Australian Leadership Award from Australian Davos Connection. The awards were directed for individuals, but linked directly with HCC work.
References - Please provide two references with a two-sentence biography, email address, and phone number for each
Stop.Traffick are an Australian social enterprise that focus on working with NGO’s in Cambodia in order to create sustainable development. HCC have been working with Stop.Traffick for 3 years. Contact there is Beth Newman +85517658967 beth@stoptraffick.org.au.
Oxfam Quebec are one of HCC’s current donors and they have worked with HCC over a number of years on projects to tackle trafficking on the boarder of Cambodia with Thailand. Currently HCC work alongside Oxfam Quebec on the Cambodia Thailand Anti Human Trafficking Network (CAHT) The contact there is Mary Prum, her email is prumm@oxfam.qc.ca.
The information you provide here will be used to fill in any parts of your profile that have been left blank, such as interests, organization information, and website. No contact information will be made public. Please uncheck here if you do not want this to happen..
Innovation
Select the stage that best applies to your solution
Start-Up (a pilot that has just begun operating)
How long have you been in operation?
Operating for less than a year
The Need: What problem are you trying to solve?
Cambodia has 35% of people living under the poverty line. This causes problems in vulnerable communities where there is a real need for health. The nation is inundated with sexual abuse, labor exploitation and trafficking. There are strong cultural factors that increase female gender inequalities and discrimination. The opportunities for women to maintain good health in Cambodia is limited. Exploitation is highly detrimental to health; maltreatment can contribute to lifelong development problems, and affect children’s ability to learn and become healthy productive members of society. There are psychological impacts including social isolation, trauma and lack of opportunity. There is a significant need for female child survivors to have a safe environment to recover from gross violations.
The Solution: What is your solution? Be specific!
The Healing Health Program addresses physical and psychological health of female child survivors. This holistic, innovative victim centered approach has two activities in addition to the existing provision of safe accommodation, medical and psychological help. The organic sustainable garden equips beneficiaries with skills and a low cost entry to market providing a future income, while increasing their nutrition intake. Gardens are relaxing and fulfill the needs of security, health, food education. Beneficiaries return to their communities and share knowledge increasing and diversifying nutrition for the whole community. The meditation will coach survivors to be calmer with a strong focus to the future, healing their mind, leading to faster rehabilitation. Research shows mediation helps improve self confidence, better personal relationships, control of thoughts and improved learning abilities. The Healing Health Program can be propelled overseas and replicated in other shelters.
The Model: Walk us through a specific example of how your solution makes a difference; include your primary activities
We’ll use the example of Maly, a 13 year old girl from Prey Veng province to walk through the model. Maly was promised domestic work in Phnom Penh by a trusted family acquaintance to send home money. Instead Maly was sold to a brothel. 1 year later during a raid she was brought to HCC for recovery. Currently there are 51 children there with similar stories. HCC did health checks and assessment. Maly had suffered huge psychological trauma, trusted no one, had exceptionally low confidence. Socially she was withdrawn and regularly had panic attacks. She had never been to school and was extremely malnourished. Through Healing Health she was able to rebuild her life and health. Maly learned a vocational skill in agriculture to sell produce and to improve her nutrition. She will have skills relevant to her home community. She will have a low cost entry to the market. Maly would help to sell at the local market, increasing her social skills, confidence, ability to handle transactions. Maly was also involved in meditation making her recovery faster through combining education with meditation. Maly has her own meditation space where she can feel comfortable and safe. She is taught meditation for half an hour a day and it enables her to learn more. HCC staff notice a fast difference in Maly. She is calmer with no panic attacks and talks with the other girls. She becomes confident as she learns her skill and returns home a capable young woman, taking her skills with her. She teaches her family and neighbors the benefits of nutrition and how to grow a variety of crops.
The Marketplace: Who are your peers and competitors? Identify others also working to address the needs you are and what differentiates you from them. What challenges could these players pose to your success or growth?
There are currently some other shelters within Cambodia that also focus on the rehabilitation of survivors of trafficking and violence. However no other shelter provides this combination of psychosocial and educational growth to improve the health of their clients. No other shelter has a sustainable organic garden used to focus on health integrated with a meditation program.
HCC strives to be a leader in best practice for shelters therefore HCC prides itself that it is the first shelter to have an organic sustainable garden of this type and the first shelter to pioneer meditation with child survivors of trafficking.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Social Impact
Founding Story: We want to hear about your "Aha!" moment. Share the story of where and when the founder(s) saw this solution's potential to change the world.
The solution came from HCC’s strategic direction for best practice standards for shelters supporting survivors together with a strong relationship with Australian social enterprise Stop.Traffick. Stop.Traffick is a not-for-profit organization to combat human trafficking. Through their thirst for developing initiatives and HCC’s local knowledge and extensive reading into meditation, the Healing Health Program was formulated. It came from the success of a smaller project which worked exceptionally well, a free range chicken farm. HCC has good connections with outlets that can sell produce grown at the center. At the point of implementation of the Giving Garden staff and beneficiaries were involved. Seeing their enthusiasm for training and the commitment to its success was inspiring. Seeing staffs ability to adapt and nurture a new garden together with the interest in meditation in Cambodian culture made HCC think think that this was a combination that could really work.
Please describe the goal of your initiative; outline what you are trying to achieve
The main goal is to ensure child survivors achieve full recovery in their physical and psychological health. HCC goal is always centered on the health and recovery of clients.
Other goals are;
• To create an organic sustainable garden – for nutritional health and education. The crops will also save the shelter money and the cash crop enables income.
• Meditation for recovery – The garden will also serve the meditation and relaxation program enabling the clients to achieve a sense of calm so that they are able to recover.
Holistically combining meditation with practical skills the client will achieve a faster reintegration onto society.
A wider health goal is improved community health and nutrition. A long term goal is to implement the program in other NGO's and abroad.
What has been the impact of your solution to date?
HCC's current protection of the basic health, upholds the rights of the most marginalized members of the Cambodian Community, children and young women who are survivors of human trafficking, labor exploitation and sexual abuse or have experienced other forms of degrading abuse, alongside a more generalized community health and human rights awareness education program. The care granted at the shelter is above the standards set in 2009 by the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation (MoSVY) in the Policy and Minimum Standards for the Protection of the Right of Victims of Human Trafficking. Currently there are 51 survivors at the shelter benefiting from the additional nutrition from the garden. The meditation element now needs to be introduced.
What is your projected impact over the next five years?
HCC plans to have survivors recovered and reintegrated at a faster pace than previously. This will transform the shelter to a short term service. Much of modern research show children after suffering trauma are better placed for personal development in the community. HCC intends that their health will be improved, they will have a vocational skill in agriculture and a life skill in nutritional education. The impact this will have on the community will be significant. Meditation can be adopted by staff too who will become trainers and the wider community can learn techniques. HCC would like the program to be adopted by other NGO’s. The majority of the center should in 5 years time be able to run from the profits coming directly from the Garden and livestock kept.
Winning entries present a strong plan for how they will achieve and track growth. Identify your six-month milestone for growing your impact
• Meditation training manual completed and areas grown • Successful crop harvests and upkeep by beneficiaries.
Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your six-month milestone
Task 1
Meditation program created. This must be by a professional and the curriculum must be implemented.
Task 2
Beneficiaries trained to identify different crops and to look after the basic crop day to day needs.
Task 3
Meditation areas created within the gardens and their maintenance up kept.
Now think bigger! Identify your 12-month impact milestone
Beneficiaries adopted meditation and vocational skills. Nutrition improved. Monitoring and evaluation of their progress is begun
Identify three major tasks you will have to complete to reach your 12-month milestone
Task 1
HCC adopted daily meditation activities. This will see a change in culture with a new routine to the beneficiaries daily lives.
Task 2
Sustainability of the garden, clear profits and maintenance as well as many successful and varied crops for nutrition.
Task 3
Monitoring and Evaluation specific plan put in place.
Sustainability
Tell us about your partnerships
Stop.Traffick started in 2009, as a group of Masters students at RMIT University, Australia where Executive Director, Terri Ly took her Masters. Stop.Traffick volunteers have been working with HCC on social enterprise projects.
HCC also has built a good relationship with;
- Socio-psychological care such as TPO and World Hope;
- Legal service providers such as Adhoc, Licadho;
- Support services such as Nyemo, Hagar, Afesip, CWCC,
- NGO networks
- Press such as Cambodia Daily,
- Local authorities
- Government institutions
- International NGO's such as World Vision Cambodia.
Are you currently targeting other specific populations, locations, or markets for your innovation? If so, where and why?
Until the first year has been a success HCC will not approach other NGO’s. However, HCC are in the process of building relations through the networks HCC are part of so that the model can be rolled out once it is monitored and evaluated and fully ready for expansion. HCC look to expand it abroad where it can be adapted depending on the agriculture and clients needs. Essentially to developing countries where trauma through trafficking or extreme poverty coupled with low education about nutrition are places to move the project to next. This is achievable via the low cost of implementation.
What type of operating environment and internal organizational factors make your innovation successful?
HCC have the experience and facilities to enable the program. HCC currently improves health of vulnerable young women and children through provision of services at the Good Day Center a rehabilitation and skill development Center. It is run by 14 staff. The shelter can accommodate up to 100 beneficiaries at a time. HCC provides healthcare and psychosocial counseling, along with basic human necessities such as food, shelter, clothing and education. The shelter has provided assistance to over 1,000 beneficiaries since its inception. Among them at least 70% of beneficiaries have been reintegrated successfully to their communities.
In January 2012, the Giving Gardens Project was implemented creating an extensive garden for the beneficiaries to develop and learn their gardening skills.
Please elaborate on any needs or offers you have mentioned above and/or suggest categories of support that aren't specified within the list
Human Resource is predominantly for a meditation/ relaxation trainer for at least 6 months. Networking with other NGO's and shelters will enable us to expand the project.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| img_0214.jpg | 251.67 KB |
| img_0218.jpg | 238.37 KB |
| img_0219.jpg | 246.97 KB |
| p1010400.jpg | 236.76 KB |
| p1010528.jpg | 247.92 KB |
| p1010567.jpg | 361.11 KB |
| p1010580.jpg | 271.13 KB |
| p1010823.jpg | 263.61 KB |
| p1010813.jpg | 343.93 KB |
 | img_0214.jpg | 252 KB |
 | img_0218.jpg | 238 KB |
 | img_0219.jpg | 247 KB |
 | p1010400.jpg | 237 KB |
 | p1010528.jpg | 248 KB |
 | p1010567.jpg | 361 KB |
 | p1010580.jpg | 271 KB |
 | p1010823.jpg | 264 KB |
 | p1010813.jpg | 344 KB |
