Two women citizen journalists (CJs) in Kratie expand the network of CJs in the province after CCIM selected them as provincial team leaders. They encouraged more women to report issues in their communities, especially the indigenous peoples’ communities and marginalized groups.
Ms. Heng Ravy, aged 29, and Mrs. Net Neurn, aged 58, took on the role as team leaders of the CJs in Kratie province after completing series of trainings organized by CCIM in May 2021. These trainings include Basic Leadership & Advocacy Skills, Basic Journalism & News Writing, Mobile Journalism, and Human Rights Reporting Skills.
Reporting Issues Facing the Kouy Community
Despite living in the remote areas, the women CJs in Kratie developed team effort for everyone to contribute, learn from each other, and provide mutual support. They also jointly report common issues facing the Kouy community in Chro Noal village, Tmey Commune, Chetbory District.
The Kratie CJs continue to learn from the experienced mentors of CCIM during their field mentoring trip on 7th to 11th February 2022. CCIM acknowledges that the CJs’ gained knowledge is lacking real practice to ensure their long-term journalistic application.
During this community visit, they worked together as a team to find community issues, identified and interviewed sources, discussed the story angles, and produced the reports. They also practiced photography, videography, and interview process as they were performing the real work of journalist.
They produce the first video report published on CJ News Facebook Page entitled “Kouy Couple Commits to Their Loved One Despite Physical Disability”, which gained a good engagement on social media with 82 likes, 39 shares, and 1.5K views. The story was mainly concerned with a poor Kouy couple with two children who struggle to make income and hold equity cards for financial assistance.
Under CCIM’s supervision, the women CJs in Kratie produced an outstanding report in written and video format entitled “Kouy Indigenous People Forced to Migrate Due to Lack Domestic Jobs”, which attracted even the local residents in Kouy community and on social media with 896 likes, 308 shares, and 17.7K views.
Si Lida, aged 26, said she constantly observes what are happening in the community and brings those issues to the authorities for immediate intervention. She asserts some of their reports have prompted to solutions, especially issues related gender and poverty facing Kouy community.
“I am happy with my role as citizen journalist. We can write stories and share them on our social media. We always monitor the issues and challenges facing our indigenous communities. The authorities also took some intervention when we reported on poor households not given equity cards and having a hard time feeding their families”, she said.
Ms. Heng Ravy said citizen journalists can act as community media watchdog and bridge the gap between concerned people and authorities. The most pressing issue facing Kouy community, she said, was the illicit logging by outsiders which causes the villagers to migrate and degrade their cultural preservation day by day.
“Illegal logging remains the big problem. Our team always focuses and tries to shed light on this issue, hoping there is some intervention though our work as citizen journalist”, she said.
Ravy is an athletic and talented team leader who facilitates and helps her members grow their personal development and journalism skills. She routinely orients the members about the role and work of CJs, share training opportunities, and lead news covering work. Each member monitors their own locality and communicate with their supervisor or CCIM team if there is a story worthy to write.
On the whole, Kratie CJs have produced more than 37 stories published on CJ Khmer website and CJ News Facebook Page, covered a wide range of issues such as good governance, Covid-19 pandemic, illegal land grabbing and deforestation, gender and poverty, and other human rights issues.
Challenges & Continued Support
Mrs. Net Neurn, who became a CJ in 2015, said the CJs still face challenges and difficulties to perform the work of citizen journalists such as the need to enhance journalistic and ethical reporting, limited cooperation with local authorities, and physical security issues when reporting sensitive issues, and customized skill trainings.
Moreover, Mrs. Neurn encourages young women and IP youth to be active in social work and news reporting as she believes it is the effective way they could contribute to community development and continued self-learning.
“Female citizen journalists need support professionally and legally. However, IPs young ourselves must go out and learn something new, like media and human rights. We still struggle with news writing. The IPs need more this kind of training […] However we should use what is available to voice our concerns to the public for support and intervention”, she added.
Tmey Commune Chief of Chet Borey District, Mr. Mom Kham welcomes the CJ’s effort and the reporting work to bring issues to local authority to investigate and intervene promptly. He observes the issues facing Kouy community ranging from water and sanitation, gender-based violence, poverty to health and migrations due to lack of jobs in the dry season.
“We always keep open space for information sharing and reporting from normal citizens. We take into careful consideration and alertness the issues brought to us. We don’t want to miss information that matters most to our villagers and Kouy communities. We also will take action immediately if the information is true and worthy.” he added.
CCIM’s Project Officer for Voice of Gender Equality Ms. Ly Sokuntheary said the project aims to promote and empower women and those considered “vulnerable groups” to part take in social and economic development.
Moreover, she claimed they can report some issues affecting the vulnerable and marginalized groups to relevant authorities for solutions, using the community media as tool to bring a positive change to their communities.
“The main purpose is to promote gender equality in government structures and public life in Cambodia. CCIM promotes the empowerment of women, girls and IPs is by creating a conducive environment for the target group and beneficiary to have greater access to information and independent media”, she continued.
To date, there are over 400 CJs in Cambodia with 205 “active” CJs, including 118 males, 82 females and 5 LGBTQs. The citizen journalists come from different backgrounds such as local people, human rights and land activists, youths, indigenous people, and forestry members etc. (Mr. Pich Chamrong)
