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Where outreach continues, community knowledge flourish

By Nasa Dip, Senior Media & Communications Officer August 9, 2025

For this year International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, we feature a young community volunteer in Ratanakiri who is a part of advocacy for GBVH knowledges in communities she grew up.

About 90% of the Indigenous communities in Cambodia reside in Ratanakiri province. Characterized by a significant presence of Indigenous communities where languages and culture intertwine, the communities face unique cultural and social challenges. At a community dialogue in Ou Chum district, a young Brao facilitator translated Kreung language to Khmer and vice versa as she facilitated the session with her colleague on Gender-based Violence (GBV).

Daeng Sokhim was a project coordinator and community volunteer at the Conserve Indigenous Peoples Languages Organization or CIPL. Speaking languages of Brao, Khmer, and Kreung, she translated Khmer language training materials into the Indigenous language at the community hall and further explained the “Problem Tree” exercise, which focused on root causes and issues of the GBV in the community. Sokhim has conducted several community dialogues across nine districts where the project is implemented.

Sokhim started her journey as a volunteer youth interest in using media to report community issue and later became a facilitator for Community Dialogue, focuses on raising GBV awareness. In her role at the time, Sokhim supported in planning the dialogues, communicating with authority and site mapping to ensure safety of participants.

“During the dialogue, I facilitate language translation to ensure the discussion is clear for participants. I also lead the discussion and questions where necessary,” she said. Her facilitation skills ensure that the awareness on the GBV issue is well informed and communicated to the participants who come from diverse Indigenous communities.

Sokhim, used her languages and coordination skills to facilitate discussion and ensure all communications are clearly deliver in Indigenous language. © 2025 Nasa Dip / CARE Cambodia

“Main issue among the community is domestic violence and lack of understanding of GBV issue. But as the community dialogue continues, the dialogue helps the community understand what the definitions of GBV are, their types, and root causes so they can understand better and reduce this issue.” Sokhim added.

To address GBV challenges in the community, CARE has been working in Ratanakiri Province through the Australia – Cambodia Cooperation for Equitable Sustainable Services (ACCESS) Program since 2021. Since March 2024, CARE is implementing the Strengthening Inclusive Services for Indigenous Peoples (SISIP) project under the second phase of the program – ACCESS 2.

The SISIP project aims to increase the voice and participation of GBV survivors and persons with disabilities, strengthening subnational GBV and disability service provision, and ensuring policies respond to their needs. Community Dialogue is one of the main focuses under the SISIP project where our local partners are utilizing their knowledge and communications with the community to develop dialogues with languages and methodology that can engage with them.

Sokhim, in glasses, explain the “Problem Tree” exercise and other training material for participants of the community dialogue. © 2025 Nasa Dip / CARE Cambodia

“The community needs young Indigenous to participate in community work and outside the community. Activities related to community development are roles and responsibilities that they should engage”.

Daeng Sokhim

Community Volunteer

For Sokhim, the dialogue might not immediately eliminate the issue, but what these activities re bringing is the awareness and knowledges of what actually is the gender-based violence and their impact within community. With about 20 dialogues that she involved as facilitator, Sokhim mentioned that the communities and authorities too have now more informed and aware of the issue.

“Some of the participants in the dialogue are youth. If they are active or highly engaged with us, whenever there are related meetings conducted by authority in their villages, they can also participate and voice their opinion on the issue. From my experience, youth who learn confidence from their engagement with us are more willing to report GBV cases that they witness, either to authority directly or to the GBV Working Group.” Sokhim added.

The International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples takes place annually on 9 August to celebrate Indigenous communities, their knowledge and raise awareness of the needs of the groups.  Her passion in community dialogue to continue improving community knowledge about gender-based violence proves that she is one of the young advocates playing a part in raising the needs of the group.

“I hope that the dialogue and activities like these continue so that awareness can be raised even more. For the future, I wish for a consistent outreach, and even better with engagement from technical experts on GBV who can make the dialogue even stronger,” Sokhim mentioned.

A five-year project SISIP is implementing in collaboration with indigenous-led local organizations, the Highlander Association (HA) and the Conserve Indigenous Peoples Languages Organization (CIPL).

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