In 2010, DPA-DEA cooperated with Bridges Across Borders (BABC) in developing the first EI curriculum for Cambodia. The project consists of two main components: developing a set of interactive curricula on mining to include background information, impact, legal framework and advocacy strategies for affected communities and a five- day Training of Trainers workshop to test the curriculum. The aim of this curriculum is to heighten awareness about issues around mining, including the mining process, impact of mining and the legal framework; to provide practical advice on how affected communities and activists can advocate for their communities if they are affected by mining; and to encourage and assist NGO and network activists to conduct their own training workshops with affected communities.

The curriculum was tested in a five-day Training of Trainers workshop on August 2 – 6. 2010. A total of 24 participants attended the workshop, five of whom were female. The participants came from DPA, EISEI secretariat, BABC, NTFP, PKH, HA, CDK, Oxfam Australia-MDK, MNN, VoD, CIDDA, RDCNRM, BCV, OPKC, and VSG and traveled from six Cambodian provinces, including Phnom Penh, Ratanakiri, Mundolkiri, Banteay Meanchey, Battambang, and Preah Vihear province. During the workshop, BABC and DPA staff monitored the success of the materials and recorded any observations related to their improvement. Trainers also conducted oral and written evaluations and encouraged participants to comment on the curriculum, including whether or not they found it enjoyable, interesting, easy to understand and practical for teaching in their communities.

The purpose of the training was:

- To build capacity about the impact of extractive industries so that participants can also be trainers.
- To seek clear feedback from the participants to more effectively update the EI module.
- To develop a training plan for the next year to provide training to communities affected by mining.

As a result, 100% of the participants passed the exam and 83% answered very well through the pre and post-testing. The participants actively contributed good feedback in upgrading the EI curriculum and simplifying it for local people. In addition, they arranged to conduct two echo-trainings for the EI community focal persons in December 2010 at Mundolkiri and Ratanakiri provinces and committed to submit the proposal to facilitate the training for beneficiaries potentially affected by mining.

The curriculum will be published in two versions: a facilitators' edition and a participants' edition. The facilitator’s edition contains all the information plus a "how to use" guide, lesson plans and handouts.  The participant edition contains just the information.

Echo-Training on Mining and community for community focal person (CFPs) on mining at Mundolkiri and Ratanakiri province.
 
Through the ToT on Mining and Community in August 2010, DPA cooperated with BABC to support the provincial mining group in RTK and MDK along with NTFP, HA, RDCNRM, CIDDA and MNN to organize the two echo-trainings on Mining and Community for community focal persons in RTK and MDK province in December 2010 with 50 community focal persons (8 or 16% of whom were women). The purpose of the training was to build the capacity for community focal person on mining in both provinces about mining issues and the relevant laws and to provide the opportunity for provincial working groups to practice the methodology from EI ToT in August to facilitate the training by them.

For the methodology, the training used many methods such as; brainstorming, role playing, group and open discussion, question and answer, pictures, drawing, case studies and quizzes about the 12 lessons of the first two in the EI curriculum in each training, including the background of mining and relevant laws.

As a result of pre and post tests, 76 percent of the participants passed and 40 percent did well. The participants clearly understood the meaning of mining and how many kinds of mining there are and the process of mining. They could also identify the meaning of EIA and what should be put in the EIA report as well as knowing about the classification of land in Cambodia, land rights and land where mining could occur, Mining Law, Land Law and the Expropriation Law in Cambodia.

The training went well and was successful because, by the end, most of the participants were able to answer questions in pre and post training and were very involved with class activities. The facilitators tried their best to teach lessons to the participants who were willing to learn all topics from this training and committed to disseminate their knowledge to their communities. The pass rate of participants was 76%. Part three about advocacy strategy will be conducted at the beginning of 2011 with the same group of people.

At the end of the training, the EI impact officer interviewed Mr. Khit Vichet, the community focal person on mining at Laak commune, O’Chom district, Ratanakiri province. Mr Khit Vichet said he was happy to participate in this training because it had enough facilitators and clear explanations. He thought that this topic was very important for him and his community because it was relevant to the problems they are currently facing. Moreover, he strongly believed he would be able to  facilitate for his community in the future and that the facilitators had a good methodology to facilitate well. He has never participated in training like this because this is a new topic for him. He learned a lot from the training and suggested to organize this training more for other communities.

Provincial Extractive Industry network planning workshop

On September 8 and 14, 2010, at the Department of Environment of Ratanakiri and the Ouen Sakana hotel in Mundolkiri province, DPA and the provincial mining network of Ratanakiri and Mundolkiri organized two provincial workshops on development implementation of extractive industry network member plan for 2011 with 106 participants (23 or 22% of whom were women) who are members of the provincial working group and the community focal person on mining. These workshops were designed to bring together CFPs, PMGs and the EISEI Secretariat and DPA staff to discuss ways for all actors to effectively work together, and included discussions about a suggested communications protocol and implementation plan for the following year. The purpose was to improve communication structures between community focal persons, provincial mining networks and the EISEI Network. DPA has since improved communication between these groups and will improve DPA’s overall capacity to respond to cases of EI impact and more easily support communities in responding to their problems. It was also designed to allow DPA and other NGOs to listen to the concerns of community partners.  The information gathered from this event will be included in the annual plans of the organisations which attended and the intention was to ensure the plans of these organisations directly reflected the needs of community people facing EI issues on a daily basis.