Page 154 - EMBRACE Book
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Soth, Cambodia Photo: © 2019 ADRA | Frank Spangler
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“We have become a ‘Child Friendly Village.’ It wasn’t easy! A record is kept of all these activities and points are tallied.
There are a lot of things you have to do to become a ‘Child Once a village reaches a certain level of points, they can
Friendly Village.’ The ADRA EMBRACE program has really become known as child friendly. But then we must keep up
helped us get there.” the work or we could lose the status by not maintaining
enough points. It has been a good incentive system for us to
To encourage communities to practice all they learned follow the key messages of EMBRACE. I am happy that we
through EMBRACE, the team in Cambodia created a ‘Child have become Child Friendly!
Friendly Village’ award.
Before ADRA came to work here, we didn’t always give a lot
For a village to qualify to become a ‘Child Friendly Village,’ of thought to what we were doing to provide healthy
the women who are participating in the project have to environments for our children to grow up in. We were so
attend at least two EMBRACE meetings a month and the men busy with our lives, trying to find enough work to get the
must attend one. Families must be using water filters or income that we needed to feed our families, that sometimes
boiling their water. People must be using a latrine. Children the proper care of our children was neglected.
must be up to date on their vaccinations, and pregnant
mothers need to visit a clinic for check-ups at least four Now, because of EMBRACE, almost everything that we do is
times. After delivery, mothers must breastfeed right away for our children.”
and for six months. Tobacco use needs to be reduced in the
village and those who do still smoke must not smoke around
children.
Photo: © 2019 ADRA | Frank Spangler
