Action Plan on the Failure of Sanitation Program in the Indigenous Minority Communities in Cambodia
By
Graduate Student, Crawford School of Economics and Government
Australian National University
Continue reading Virak Sao-Action Plan
Cambodian eLibrary
Dear Virak,
I am very interested in your paper about sanitation in the highlander communities. After reading your paper, I have some comments and questions. I am sorry if my comments and questions are not acceptable.
Through reading your introduction paragraph, I can assume that the provinces and people you mentioned in your paper are those who live in Ratanakiri and Mondolkiri provinces.
Point number 2. I do not agree with you that mentioned the highlanders (In Cambodia, according to Asian Development Bank, the term “indigenous or highlander” is used for those people who live in the northeastern provinces of Cambodia because this region is considered as upland area . In fact, there are many terminologies refer to indigenous people such as tribal people, forest people, minority, and highland people) prefer to use the natural water from the streams because they thought it is naturally made and related to their belief. Through out my experience living with highlanders in the forest for more than two months (when I conducted my M.A research) I found that they want to use the pump water, but there are no pump in their communities or if there are pumps, but it broke.
In this paragraph, you also mentioned about animal raising. You explained that they prefer to keep animal at home and this affect to their sanitation. How can it affect the water sanitation if their stream located at least 500 meters from their houses? What kind of animals you want to refer to? But from my experience and knowledge from readings books and article from Trobaski, Jonna White, Fréderic Bourdier, Sara Colm, Jeramy, Ian Biard, and other researchers about Highlanders in Cambodia, indicated that highlanders do not keep their raised animals at home. They allow them to run free.
For other points, I also found the contrast between the reality in the fields and your information you stated in your paper. I want to ask you some questions. Have you ever lived and participated with highland communities before writing this paper? What sources you used to write this papers?
I am sorry again if my comments and suggestions are not convenient. Anyways, it is a pleasure to read your paper.
Regards,
Dina