Ethiopian Review
A few weeks ago I was sitting in a steamy forest drinking juice from a slightly fermented coconut. I had arrived here, at the patrolling station of a Community Forestry bang in the middle of Cambodia, after following a petite woman with a beetle-nut orange smile over fences, through bushes and under the branches of a huge cashew nut orchard. We had all followed her actually; myself and the Oxfam GB team and at least half of the local village. We must have looked like a scene from the Pied Piper as a long line of people snaked in and out of trees, trying to keep up with her, pausing only while she snapped off some branches to chew, loaded up her hat with leaves and fruit and jumped up on rocks to yell gleefully out to those straggling at the back.
Her name was Nhek Oeng and as we sat at the patrolling station downing warm, fizzy coconut juice her story unfolded. Throughout our time in Cambodia we had heard the stories of many women who seemed to be feeling the impacts of climate change, their crops becoming harder and harder to manage as more extreme weather patterns emerged, their children becoming ill in hotter weather than they had seen before. Oeng’s story had another dimension. She had recently joined Oxfam’s Women Empowerment Network and was now taking more and more of a leadership role in her Community Forestry. As well as describing how her village was committed to preserving the forest for the next generation and detailing the sustainable livelihoods work they are all involved in, she also told us of her transformation into a local mover and shaker.
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