In developing country such as Cambodia, Information Communication and Technology (ICT) is rapidly growing day by day. There are many efforts from many sectors including government, private company and civil society to develop many initiatives to respond the need of the ICT in the globe and particularly in Cambodia.
One of initiatives that CCC has implemented is Improve NGO E Communication and Networking. The Khmer Unicode training is one of the key activities, which has been widely known at both national and global. In order to help government to reduce poverty in Cambodia, Cooperation Committee for Cambodia (CCC) work in partnership with Open Institute and Oxfam Australia to improve Communication among NGOs as well as developing the capacity of NGOs to communicate and work with the target community they serve and promote proactive responses to the needs, priorities and emerging issues from the NGO community and offer Khmer Unicode and Open Office classroom to all NGOs, CSOs, public school and government officials etc.
The overall objective of the training to improve knowledge and skills of NGOs staff in using new software (Unicode) in their daily work. Unicode enable to type Khmer font faster than ever without press Atl+Ctrl or Atl+Ctrl+Shift keys. Open Office software can be used with free license and can distribute for free.
The objectives of the training were, at the end of the course, the students will be able to:
- Type Khmer very fast with UNICODE standard.
- Create professional-looking documents by using Open Office (word-processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool, or a combination of them).
- Effectively communicate through e-mail in Khmer language, send and receive mail, and do basic configuration of the e-mail application.
- Access specific URLs through the Internet, do searches using search engines (google,...)
- Install Khmer software application
The typical topics of the training included:
| 1. How to type Khmer UNICODE |
1hours |
1 lesson |
| 2. Word-processing (OOo Writer) | 8 hours | 4 lessons |
| 3. Spreadsheet usage (OOo Calc) | 6 hours | 5 lessons |
| 4. Presentation Tool usage (OOo Impress) | 3 hours | 3 lessons |
| 5. E-mail (Thunderbird - Moyura) | 2 hours | 2 lessons |
| 6. Internet Browsing (Firefox - Mekhala) | 2 hours | 2 lessons |
| 7. Installation of Khmer software applications | 1 hour | 1 lesson |
| 8. How to convert legacy to Unicode to legacy | 1 hour | 1 lesson |
After each training course, the trainees were asked to feedback to the training, as the results, the training provided them with enhanced skills and they understood and will get benefits in using computer for office work as below:
- Unicode Khmer Font is now widely used in Cambodia (public and private sectors) so this greatly enhance timely and efficient file sharing.
- Unicode Khmer will enable faster typing.
- Using Open Office Software is legal with free license.
- Using Open Office as Khmer language such as: Open office (Writer), Open office (Calc), Open office (Impress).
- More Perfect Khmer Font Style.
- No English knowledge required.
