In addition to the regular monitoring visits that the AWCF Secretariat conducts year-round to member-organizations in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, it carried out two special monitoring visits in September 2007 as part of the organization’s membership campaign and networking agenda.

On September 3-7, 2007, AWCF’s Ms Salome Ganibe, Executive Director; Ms Angelita Valdez, Program Coordinator; and Ms Aster Peňaranda, Finance and Administration Coordinator went to Brunei Darussalam to meet officers and staff of the Brunei Industrial and Development Authority (BINA) and the Council of Women of Brunei Darussalam (CWBD). They next went to Cambodia on September 10-15, 2007, where they were joined by Ms Kruewan Chonlanai, AWCF Vice President-Internal Affairs. They met officers and AWCF regional activities’ alumni from Cambodia’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA), the Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children’s Rights (CCPCR), and the Socio-Economic Development Organization of Cambodia (SEDOC), all based in Phnom Penh.

For her visit to Siem Reap, one of the towns outside Phnom Penh, Ms Valdez was accompanied by Ms Prin Sophanit, an AWCF alumni and a former staff of Angkor Participatory Development Organization (APDO), which they visited. They also went to other organizations working in Siem Reap like the Adventist Development and Relief Agency International (ADRA) and the Life and Hope Association (LHA).

AWCF and the visited offices presented to each another their respective organizational vision, mission, and goals; and their current programs and services. The meetings also paved the way for the AWCF alumni in those offices—officers or members of the visited organizations who had attended previous AWCF entrepreneurship development training events conducted since 2003—to give updates on the status of the entrepreneurial work they are presently engaged in vis-à-vis the Co-operative Entrepreneurship Development Action Plan (CEDAP) they made during the training. The meetings also explored possibilities for partnership and future co-operation between AWCF and the visited organizations for the development and empowerment of women in Brunei and in Cambodia.

The visit to Brunei Darussalam was capped by the courtesy call made by AWCF to PG Mariana PDNLDR PG Momin, Officer in Charge (OIC) Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Industry and Primary Resources, who pledged her support to AWCF, particularly on matters pertaining to the development of different industries and co-operatives in Brunei. AWCF also had an audience with Dr. Ing Kantha Phavi, Minister of Cambodia’s MoWA, who was very grateful for the inclusion of her staff in AWCF-initiated capability building training for the past years, which paved the way for the introduction of new and/or additional entrepreneurial concepts in their work in Cambodia.