Ten years on
Phnom Penh - MSI Cambodia recently celebrated its 10th anniversary of service to the women and men of Cambodia with a gala dinner held at the Cambodiana Hotel in the capital.
Attended by government representatives, partners, the donor community and celebrity goodwill ambassadors, as well as MSI team members from around the country, the celebration marked the programme’s progress from its humble beginnings to today’s organisation which now has a strong presence in more than half the country!
During its first year of operation, MSI Cambodia, then known as the Cambodian Women’s Clinic, reached a total of just 49 clients. Over the past nine years, however, the organisation has steadily grown and now has six clinics in five provinces as well as clinical outreach activities in 10 provinces reaching the poor, vulnerable and under-served. Last year, 22,719 clients walked through the world-famous MSI door to receive high quality, affordable SRH services.
But what of the future? Over the next year or so, MSI Cambodia will focus on expanding access to medical abortion, with a view to branding and franchising
the drugs and training local counterparts in their safe use. Currently, Cambodian women prefer medical rather than surgical abortion for a range of cultural reasons.
However, due to a number of reasons including the poor quality of the drugs available and poor information, many medical abortions end up incomplete and some end up in fatalities. By extending the availability of affordable, reliable and safe medical abortion, backed by MSI’s global reputation, MSI Cambodia hopes the benefits of medical abortion will reach the overwhelmingly rural population
who are currently drastically under-served.
Stimulating demand will also be high on the agenda. The programme will move away from the dominant general health promotion awareness approach to more strategic, targeted and evidence based models in partnership with small urban
businesses.
The team will also be expanding the networks it has with entertainment workers and garment factory workers; and develop more, stronger mass media advocacy
initiatives. To help reach young people, MSI Cambodia has also ‘adopted’ Cambodia’s first couple of entertainment, Yuthara Chhany and Chorn Chanleakhena, as Goodwill Ambassadors.
Both stars are excellent role models for family planning for young - and not-soyoung
- Cambodians. Other activities identified to help reach the youth target group are radio, television, telephone hotlines, email, SMS campaigns and pop concerts.
Male involvement is also high on the agenda and the programme is currently in the process of identifying a sports star to advocate for vasectomy. In recognising the good work MSI Cambodia has done over the last ten years, Programme Director Che
Katz refl ected on the challenges and highlights of working in SRH in a post-conflict country such asCambodia.
“Thanks to the support of the Government of Cambodia, MSI Cambodia is now looking forward to growing and surrounding itself with the best people in order to assist all Cambodian women to have a brighter future.”