by Live and Learn Cambodia

Last 28-30 May 2024, the Linking and Learning Cambodia team organised a three-day Knowledge Exchange with the theme “Unpacking the Journey and Ways Forward”. This aimed to explore initiatives led by grantee partners, rightsholders and a community of practitioners focusing on good practices and co-creation of knowledge and experiences on intersectional approaches. It facilitated conversation that deepened their understanding of co-creation and explored opportunities for collaborations that can enable practical peer-to-peer linking, relationship building, and a collaborative way forward.   

To start the first day of the workshop, participants were introduced to a silent session with no music for everyone to slow down and be in the moment. There were 48 participants in the room and we had a chance to introduce ourselves to each other, and set rules for our three-day workshop.  

Day one

How to do things differently or better? First, there were two unconference sessions on Advocacy and Inclusion approaches by Sign Language for All and HelpAge Cambodia, led separately in two breakout sessions. After that, the CoP (Communities of Practice) ID-PwD who’s conducting a research on Disability Card presented the research study findings to the plenary group for learning and support. The research study will be produced in both Khmer and English languages and distributed to stakeholders and government partners for future reference.  

Day two

Co-creation spaces drive deeper. The day started with a sharing from the Community of Practice-IP, represented by Phum Asia, Mr. Chhouden. He presented the CoP IP journey co-created with OPKC, working to amplify the Indigenous Kui identity (language) through theatrical performance and multimedia. He highlighted their 68-day journey, starting from scenario writing and story development, to an eight-day intensive training until the final Yike performance that captured the essence of Kui’s life 50 years ago. Along the implementation of CoP-IP project, the community engagement was able to produce the first Yike performance in the Kui language on March 8, 2024. This is a historic moment for the Kui community, showcasing identity, resilience, and unity witnessed by more than 1,000 individuals from 12 villages. Listening to the CoP-IP sharing, participants were amazed by how innovative and committed they were to promote IP cultural identity.  

Following to the sharing of CoP, the workshop went deep on reflection around all the Communities of Practice in Cambodia namely: CoP-IP, CoP-LGBT, CoP-PwD & Elderly, and CoP-ID PwD. The session was designed for all CoP team to have separate team discussion on five key learning and reflection questions around strategies or approaches, good practice, lesson learned, existing stakeholders, and future plan or initiative plan in scaling up the CoP work. Following the discussion, the facilitator asked all groups to select three key higlights and write them on given papers, which were afterwards placed on a big Linking and Learning Journey canvas. We all sat down around the collective works and started engaging for a collective reflection. The plenary discussion was so interactive and engaging that everyone was interested in each other strategies and learning.  

To make some fun memories together, we had a 30-minute energizer game led by Sign Language for All. It was a non-communicative game where two teams stood in two lines competing with each other by guessing the words passed from the first person to the last person without saying any word other than using body gesture. If the last person in the que got it right, they would get a point. That was so much fun, and everyone was living in the moment.  

The last discussion was about the Linking and Learning Impact Journey for Voice grantee partners. The session allowed participants to work in four groups and discuss on a different question each: the good practices of the L&L (lingking & Learning) platform, the changes they faced after joining with L&L, suggestions or recommendations for the L&L platform, and planning for the future of the L&L platform. The discussion was followed by a World Café format session which allowed each group to move around from one group to another to learn and provide more inputs to the discussion.  

Day three

The workshop has come to the final day, and it was wrapped up with some memorable moments together. We started with meditation to make everyone feel relieved from stress. Afterwards, we played two energizer games altogether. Everyone had so much fun as they laughed out loud. We all felt more energetic and connected with each other. The happy moments continued with the contribution of everyone making the space more beautiful by playing Khmer music and dancing altogether. 

The fun did not end there as we had a bus ready to take everyone go sightseeing along Kompot Lake view for some pictures before we head to another field visit at Epic Arts Café. The Epic Art Team provided an informative field visit, showcasing their work in serving marginalised groups. The presentation included an interactive video case study, highlighting Epic Café’s sustainable funding and inspiring art shows from people with disabilities. The show called “SAME SAME” performed by people with disability emphasised the unity and potential of all individuals, regardless of disability. 

The Knowledge Exchange did really unpack the journey of Voice grantee partners to pave a way forward, to continue testing and reflecting. The discussion results served as fruitful inputs for the learning documentation. Linking and Learning team carefully captured all the learning and produce it for a living learning documents to share to all grantee partners and stakeholders.