Details

Short description of the organisation the funds were raised for
Toek Hout Mean Chey Kdey Sangkhem Agricultural Cooperatives was registered as an Agricultural Cooperative (AC) in 2016 with the Provincial Development of Agriculture in Kampong Chhnang, Cambodia. The cooperative has 36 members, including 29 female members. The cooperative is active in Toek Hout commune. There are currently 581 households in the community, 415 of them headed by women. Their main occupation is agriculture. On the recommendation of the Department of Agriculture, the farmers employ only natural fertilisers. In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries helped drill wells and installed a network of pipes to improve irrigation in the district.

Short description of the project or programme the funds were raised for
Fast growing crops like lettuce, cabbage or kale are often grown once or twice a year, but few Cambodian farmers opt to plant and harvest such produce year-round. One exception to this rule can be seen in Kampong Chhnang province, where about 160 households – all members of the cooperative - have chosen to focus on year-round production of garlic scapes. Similar to chives, garlic scapes are the flavourful tender green shoots that sprout from young garlic plants.
According to Ms. Rith Chantha, chairwoman of the cooperative, most of the garlic leaves are sold in the markets of Kampong Chhnang, Kampong Speu, Battambang and Pursat provinces, at a good price. “The popularity of garlic leaves from Rolea Ba’ier district comes from their unique colouring and attractive scent. The community has fertile soil and year-round irrigation on an area of almost 100ha, so it is an ideal crop for us,” she told a local newspaper. “These leaves are now a part of the identity of Kampong Chhnang province, and demand is high. Due to a lack of production capital, we are currently unable to meet that demand, however. Garlic transplanting machines would help, but we are unable to invest enough to afford them.”

Summary of fundraising action
To try to increase her production capital, Ms. Chantha decided to join the local fundraising training offered by Cambodian Change the Game Academy partner CCC. Throughout this capacity building package (series of training courses: a 5‐day course, an online webinar, individual face-to-face coaching and reflection workshop), she strengthened her knowledge, skills and experiences in raising funds by using domestic sources. As a result, Ms. Chantha was able to introduce an online purchase order and home‐delivery service, which proved to be an effective option for both the lead CBO and other members, to distribute their vegetables, fish farm and other outputs right to the door of the community people, even though many difficulties had to be faced such as the ban on cross province/zone transportation during COVID-19. Despite the COVID pandemic, TMKS was are able to increase its annual budget 10 times, from USD 2,050 in 2021 to USD
20,100 in 2022.

Objectives
1. To increase the agricultural productivity in the community.
2. To increase our product sales and generate more income for the community.

Targeted donors
1. People in the TMKS community.
2. NGOs, donors, local government funds.

Results

Accounting details
There are 581 families in the communities. They can now generate a monthly income as follows:
600 USD/ family/month (nearly 90% of the chicken-raising families);
300 USD/family/month (10% of the vegetable-growing families).

Result comments
- Our AC gained technical skills by developing proposals and event plans for local fundraising. Our AC committees and team members involved in LFR gained more knowledge and skills for LFR activities.
- Our community members were able to generate more income for their families, avoiding the need to migrate to other countries for work.

Description of preparatory work
After submitting the LFR proposal to CCC, I started some fundraising initiatives to get funding for roads, irrigation systems, ponds and COVID victim assistance in our town. After CCC's training, we learnt various skills and tips for developing a proposal/plan to raise funds and seek support to help improve our cooperative and community.

There were several steps.
- First, we created flyers for promotional purposes.
- We approached local markets to advertise.
- We planned the production, bought local items, such as chickens, frogs, garlic, cabbages, etc. and sold them to marketplaces.
- We designed a logo/mark for our products. We also arranged the locations for our sales, in physical places and online.
- Lobby and communication, to seek assistance from other communities and partners in the province and Phnom Penh City.

Description of implementation
We participated in various events to promote agricultural products at exhibitions to reach out to the market and gain recognition, allowing customers to test our products and distribute the promotional/marketing material of our products through leaflets, brochures and name tags. We got help from our community in selling agricultural products to customers through the Facebook platform for online sales. This was quite difficult in the beginning, but with CCC's financial support and delivery of products to customers, we were able to increase our income while reducing delivery costs.

Follow up: Donor appreciation and acknowledgement
1. We shared information and photos of the poor households that have received financial support to raise chickens with the donors, through Facebook posts. And created donor visibility by mentioning them in the same post. 2. We updated the project activity to the donor (CCC) during the physical meeting in Phnom Penh when I participated in CCC's training, workshop and forum. 3. We shared the progress of the activity and result to the donors through the telegram group, and gave credit to the donors.

Plans to repeat the action
We are planning two local fundraising proposals in our community: 1. A gasoline station in our village. Currently, it is difficult for our community to obtain gasoline for agricultural activities. The station is far from our village. The proposal aims to help villagers to gain easier access to gasoline for business purposes, such as pumping water for growing vegetables and feeding the animals. 2. The establishment of a children's communal library: Reading culture is an issue in Cambodia, especially in rural areas. We want to establish a children's communal library to build the reading habit for all children in the community. This is our contribution to education. We are hopeful that our proposal will be accepted soon.