Cambodia workshop builds communications capacity of NGOs, government and civil society

^{Group photo of workshop participants © Sonim Veth / MFF Cambodia}

Following opening remarks from the facilitators and a keynote speech from Sreng Sophal, Deputy Director of the Department of Marine and Coastal Conservation for the Cambodia Ministry of Environment (MoE) and a member of the MFF Cambodia National Coordinating Body, participants learned about the relevance, necessity, and components of communications, and worked in groups to develop basic communications strategies.

Once their understanding of the importance of communications had been established, they then learned about three different types of news stories and their uses, and learned the specific techniques for writing hard news stories. A brief overview of photography was also provided, including the importance of pairing stories with photographs, and a few techniques for capturing and choosing compelling images.

On the second day of the workshop, participants visited a mangrove rehabilitation site near the ecotourism village of Trapeang Sangke, outside the town of Kampot, and had the opportunity to practice taking photographs and to speak with Sim Him, the head of Trapeang Sangke’s Community Fisheries.

Using the information they had gathered at the field site, as well as the techniques for writing hard news stories learned in class, participants drafted stories in groups. These stories were then reviewed and workshopped among the groups, giving participants the opportunity to identify where their peers had successfully utilised the story writing techniques, and where they could improve.

^{Workshop participants present their group's communications strategy © Elaine Mumford - IUCN/MFF}

“The participants were really active in the discussions and groupwork,” said Vanny Lou, National Coordinator for MFF Cambodia. “They also seemed very quick to learn the basic structure of a communications strategy and a news story, which were the workshop deliverables.”

“The workshop is a step towards one of MFF’s goals for Phase 3, which is to build the capacity of government and non-governmental stakeholders to document and communicate initiatives that have a positive impact on coastal ecosystems and natural resource-dependent communities,” said Ann Moey, Head of Communications for IUCN Asia.

The workshop was facilitated by Vanny Lou and Ann Moey, with support from Elaine Mumford, Regional Communications Assistant for IUCN Asia.

 For more photos of the workshop and field trip, please visit our Facebook album, or click the image below:

^{A fishing boat at Trapeang Sangke © Elaine Mumford - IUCN/MFF}