Phnom Penh: The partnership between CARE International Cambodia and the Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW) has provided a great deal of knowledge to workers, with workers receiving training on topics such as social protection, workplace violence and financial management which are all important knowledge that they experience in working place and daily life.

We observed that after receiving training by peers of CUMW in collaboration with CARE under the auspices of the brand owner Lululemon in the project to strengthen the economic resilience of garment workers during Covid-19, which is a project Made by Women, workers have a better understanding of their fundamental rights and freedoms, better understanding of all forms of violence in the workplace, especially the benefits of using social protection, as well as their financial management.

CUMW is an independent professional organization that is active in protecting the rights, freedoms and legitimate interests of workers, and through this partnership agreement, both peers and workers are more able with the topics raised. Training on the above three main topics has helped to increase workers' awareness of social protection, which in the past most workers did not fully understand the benefits provided to workers.

In addition, workers who attended training with peers from CUMW in collaboration with CARE had a better understanding of violence and harassment in the world of work, especially as they were aware of all forms of abuse. Violation both physically, mentally, emotionally and economically by the employers.

Moreover, workers also receive changes in financial management habits, spending management plans, especially focusing on positive and negative debt that they have never been aware of in the past, and as a result, their knowledge getting much better to take the knowledge that has been learned and apply it in daily life to create positive results.

Project Manager for Care International Cambodia for the Economic Resilience and Welfare of Workers, Ms. Kann Sopheak, recently said, “Through practicing, we see that the team has fulfilled its duties and passed on knowledge to workers remarkably well, we also see that workers are interested in the knowledge of strengthening resilience during Covid-19, and they also know how to record and plan their expenses that they did not do it before.”

Ken Chhenglang, project manager of CUMW, said that the workers were very interested in the harassment in the workplace when they attended the training, they felt it was something they had experienced. "We can conclude that they have experienced those things, but they did not know that they are a form of harassment."

"We observe that workers have a lot of questions related to social protection, which means that they are more aware of the benefits of social protection," she said. Between 70% and 80% of them are in debt and are facing financial management problems. Through this training, they have a lot of insights that can help change their financial planning in the future