Access to safe drinking water should be a basic right for all – a photo story. The 25th Global Young Leaders Programme - Hong Kong and Cambodia 30 January – 11 February 2012
Photo by: Yuxin Hou
Participants gather with locals from Kor Roka village to discuss with the Deputy Chief the reasons why they do not connect to piped water even though the infrastructure already exists.
“The programme confirmed the importance of diversity in finding solutions and generating ideas.” Ashley Hein – Origin Energy 21 emerging leaders from 13 different organisations and 11 nationalities began the Young Leaders Programme (YLP) by spending a week in Hong Kong, where interactive classroombased sessions were designed to expand their mindsets and challenge their assumptions about critical challenges facing the region. From day one of the YLP participants are encouraged to move out of their comfort zone and think about important global issues beyond their industries and usual daily work.
Photo by: Nada Chan
Participant Cynthia Chua from Singapore begins to digest the YLP course materials
Speakers challenge conventional thinking. Participants had in depth discussions with accomplished speakers such as Professor Hideaki Takahashi, who is a board member at NEC and an advisor to many of Japan’s top executives. He spoke on what it takes to have a high performance team and conducted exercises with participants that forced them to think outside the box.
Photo by: Nada Chan
Hideaki Takahashi tells participants to “Keep the positivity up!”
Other speakers included Ravi Chidambaram of TC Capital who introduced the concept of Impact Investing - “Missing Middle Finance”, and Ada Wong, co-founder of the Make a Difference (MaD) initiative, who led a discussion around social entrepreneurship.
Learning from each other. The first week’s sessions find participants debating, role-playing and working on communicating their thoughts and ideas to the group. A wide range of topics are covered, including: globalisation; the role of business in society; behaviour before brand – business ethics, and others. During breakout sessions candid discussions allow participants to see things from different perspectives and learn from each other’s experiences.
Photo by: Yuxin Hou
Photo by: Nada Chan
Left: Ada Wong. Right: Ravi Chidambaram.
Photo by: Nada Chan
Participants Khalijah, Nynke and Magali discuss the externalities of the finance and banking sector. Khalijah, from Maybank in Malaysia explains the social responsibilities of her bank, and of banks in general.
Seeing with their own eyes. The second week of the YLP takes participants to the field where, as Chandran Nair, Founder and CEO of the Global Institute For Tomorrow (GIFT) describes it, they will have the opportunity to “see, smell and feel what this challenge is all about.”
Photo by: Mei Cheung
Chandran Nair: “This is not a case study, the plan affects the very people you will meet in Cambodia”.
The challenge: work with socially minded venture capital firm DEVENCO on a business plan to scale-up water treatment centres and distribute clean piped water to more households in rural Cambodia.
A water success story. During a visit to the Phnom Penh Water Supply Authority (PPWSA), participants met with Dr. Chea Visoth (on the far right), Deputy Director of PPWSA to learn about the success they have had supplying water to the city – 90% coverage of the city, leakage reduced from 72% to 6% and a bill collection ratio of 98%. PPWSA was awarded the Stockholm Industry Water Award in 2010. A short tour of the facilities showed participants the magnitude of PPWSA’s operations.
Photo by: Yuxin Hou
Participant Tomihisa Yano, Manager at NEC Corporation examines the pipes used by PPWSA
Photo by: Nada Chan
Photo by: Nada Chan
In Kraing Makak village, participants inspect the infrastructure and interview villagers on attitudes towards paying for clean water.
Feeling what others feel. Participants set out to visit four different villages to better understand the water situation in rural Cambodia. They visited two villages with access to water, one village without access due to the lack of infrastructure and another without access due to the cost of connection being too high. On the left are Socheata Sen, Serla Sen and Seiha Sen from Kor Roka village. Their father drives a “moto” as a taxi and provides the only source of income for the family. In this village the infrastructure is in place but most families cannot afford the high connection fees. Photo by: Cynthia Chua
“My husband built this house for my family” Towth, 42 years old, lives in the house that was built by her husband, a construction worker in Kraing Makak village. Her five daughters and two grandchildren live there as well. Towth’s home is connected to the Bek Chan Water Station and enjoys the convenience of being able to drink the tap water, although her family still has the habit of boiling water prior to consumption.
Photo by: Nada Chan
Photo by: Cynthia Chua
Photo by: Nada Chan
“My son works for the water station” 86 year old Un Saroeun lives in Kraing Makak Village which is connected to a water station and receives clean piped water. She fully believes the piped water is safe to drink but still boils it as she usually drinks tea. Un collects rainwater which she uses for household chores such as washing clothing – it is a free source of water but she knows that after storage in infected containers it is not safe to drink. Below, she shows the group her water meter and the pipe that provides her house with clean drinking water.
Photo by: Yuxin Hou
Photo by: Yuxin Hou
Meak Bochea Day in Phnom Penh.
Photo by: Nada Chan
Participants gleaned many insights from the women of Kor Roka village who were kind enough to receive the group on a national holiday – Meak Bochea Day – which commemorates the spontaneous gathering of monks to listen to the Buddha's teachings. The women had gathered in the communal pagoda for half the day to pray, demonstrating a real sense of community. The image below shows the women in their special holiday dress.
The woman above was identified as being one of the wealthier villagers as she had a number of electrical appliances in her home. When asked about access to piped water she said “it is good to have the convenience of piped water in the house, but conveniences normally bring more difficulty,” referring to the fact that she would use the water often but it now comes with a price tag. These women have been in the village throughout the wars that plagued Cambodia for much of the last century and they have seen a lot of changes in rural lifestyles. For example many more people now own cars and in a light-hearted gesture reflecting her own lifestyle, the woman, in the centre of the photo below, pointed to her legs and said “These are my car.”
Photo by: Nada Chan
Photos by: Cynthia Chua
“I am proud to wear my uniform each day” Mr. Chan Sokkhom has been working at Muk Kompul Water Supply (MKWS) for three years. He truly believes in the value of his job and feels proud to be able to supply clean drinking water to villagers in the surrounding area. MKWS currently has 1,900 connections but has a license to supply water to 5,000 households and the neighbouring industrial zone. Operations have not been expanded due to a lack of capital.
Photo by: Nada Chan
Village Chief shares her thoughts. YLP participants discussed raising awareness of the need for clean drinking water with Kor Roka’s village chief to get a better sense of what strategies would be possible and effective within the rural parts of Cambodia.
Photo by: Nada Chan
As a teacher herself, the Village Chief indicated that she would be willing and able to include the importance of safe drinking water into her classes at the local school. She suggested that this topic could be discussed at monthly teachers’ committee meetings.
Benefits to local Micro-Entrepreneurs. This woman runs two businesses with her husband – hairdressers and a coffee shop for Kraing Makak village. The two shops are located right next to each other for convenience. To her family and business, having access to clean drinking water is essential. However, she feels that the quality of the water has been decreasing since the initial connection. This may be due to several reasons - poor maintenance of the pipes or poor management of regulation and quality control at the Water Service Provider. She would like to be able to “shop around” for alternative solutions but is not sure what they may be or if they are available.
Photo by: Yuxin Hou
Photos by: Yuxin Hou
Scaling up water treatment and distribution in Cambodia. The 25TH YLP culminated in a final forum held in Phnom Penh. It was a full house with guests representing the water sector, NGOs, investment companies, and local officials. The top-right image features the presentation team – these four participants were chosen to present highlights of the business plan. The team did a great job and the presentation was well received. Mr Tan Socheat (top left), Head of the Department of Potable Water Supply at MIME (the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy) gave an overview of the water situation in Cambodia. He commented that many of the ideas presented by the group could be the solutions that Cambodia needs to employ to solve some of the pressing water issues the country currently faces.
Photo by: Nada Chan
Partnering with DEVENCO. YLP participants worked closely with one of Cambodia’s first Venture Capital firms DEVENCO in producing the business plan. In the photo on the right, from L to R, are Rithivit Tep and Christophe Forsinetti, Chairman and CEO of DEVENCO respectively. Through the programme, participants provided DEVENCO with a number of new ideas on how to approach and manage this promising but challenging business. “The program has shed light on several aspects of our project and the quality of the participants enabled the articulation of these ideas in our plan in a time efficient manner. It was a great experience to collaborate with the YLP. GIFT really helps by giving more visibility to pioneering projects that address critical social and development problems in the world” - Christophe Forsinetti If you are interested to learn more about the business plan or the participants’ experience in Cambodia, please contact GIFT.
Global Institute For Tomorrow (GIFT) Suite 1111, Cityplaza One, 1111 Kings Road, Taikoo Shing, Hong Kong Tel: (852) 3571-8103 | E-mail:
[email protected] | Web: www.global-inst.com
Photo by: Yuxin Hou
Photo by: Nada Chan
