The Municipal Coordinating Committee on Bicycle Assistance (MCCOBA) supplies approximately three thousandreconditioned bicycles every year through JOICFP to community health workers in developing countries, and to date has supplied 800 to Cambodia.

From 11th to 16th July, Hideyuki Takahashi, Director, and Tomoko Koseko, Assistant Program Officer, Resource Development and Campaign, JOICFP, visited Cambodia to monitor use of bicycles by the Reproductive Health Association of Cambodia (RHAC).

RHAC uses the bicycles in community-based outreach programs, targeting nearly 4,000 villages with a total population of over three million in seven provinces, and the JOICFP mission observed use of bicycles in Takeo and Kampong Speu provinces.

JOICFP also visited the rapidly growing town of Siem Riep, associated with the popular tourist site of Angkor Wat, to observe RHAC health education programs, including those for HIV/AIDS prevention, for construction workers and hostesses working in karaoke bars.

Volunteers

RHAC Health Development Team (HDT) volunteers perform services such as distributing contraceptives and family planning and reproductive health information, providing ante-natal and post-natal care, delivering HIV/AIDS education, promoting TB prevention, and assisting women to reach clinical services. There is a huge demand for these services, and MCCOBA bicycles are critical in attempting to meet it.

A HDT member on her bicycle donated through MCCOBA

A HDT member gives a lecture on reproductive health

RHAC is a national organization, and there are many expectations for it to deliver health care. RHAC is well recognized for its wide range of the activities. In community-based health care, there is a workforce of 1,750 HDTs. Expanding HDT cover and supporting refresher training to upgrade their knowledge and skills is well organized and needed to sustainably cover the expanded geographical area. No other organization in Cambodia routinely provides pap tests, and laboratory technicians need retraining to meet the services in the community.

Having just finished delivering health education information, this HDT member gets on with another important task

On 4 August, JOICFP and RHAC made a joint presentation at the first WRA Asia-Pacific Regional Conference in Indonesia. The participants heard how JOICFP is developing the WRA campaign through the donation of bicycles, and RHAC explained how bicycles are an important tool in saving mothers' lives.