"Women are a great untapped potential in Cambodia. That is the driving idea behind the EU-funded project “Women into Politics! Greater female participation in Cambodia”. This three-year project reached women from different regions in Cambodia and gave them the communications skills they needed to run for political office and talk to their constituents or become community leaders in their own locales. It was implemented by Germany’s leading media development organization DW Akademie, local partners Banteay Srei (BtS) and the Women’s Media Centre of Cambodia (WMC), and two third-party funding recipients, Cambodian Volunteers for Society (CVS) and the Youth Council of Cambodia (YCC). The project made use of media—radio, video and, especially, social media—as well as community forums to reach young people, particularly women and first-time voters, in the runup to communal and national elections. This gave them the knowledge they needed to make informed choices at the polls. The project disseminated information on topics with special relevance to women that emerged from local forums where community women could make their voices heard. The project’s overarching goals, empowerment and greater equality for Cambodian women, were in line with the European Union’s focus on gender equality and its commitment to the protection and fulfilment of human rights for women and girls. This best-practice handbook aims to provide an overview of the project—its goals, its approach, its activities and its results. It will look at who was primarily involved in each activity field, how they contributed or benefited, and what came of the three years of project work. This handbook also examines the challenges involved in carrying out the planned activities in a political environment that saw significant changes during the project period." (Introduction)
Women into politics! At a glance, 10
Activity Cluster 1: Communications training and dialogue with communities, 12
Profile. Sos Raforn, 16
Activity Cluster 2: Informing youth about democratic participation and issues relevant to women, 18
Activity Cluster 3: Media coverage of democratic participation and gender-relevant topics, 24
Financial support to third parties, 28
Project achievements, 32
Challenges and lessons learned, 35