Hello, who are you?

I am Khamla Thammachak and am 39 years old. I obtained my BSc from Lao Samphanh Mitmaity Agriculture college with a major in agronomy. Currently, I work at DATEAP, and my main responsibility is as a trainer to farmer organizations and extension staff at province and district level in all provinces of Laos PDR. I work in the CDAIS project as facilitator for the Commercial cattle association niche in Bankeun, Thoulakhom district, Vietiane province.

What are your role and responsibilities as National Innovation Facilitator?

My major task is facilitating capacity development of the cattle niche to enable them to contact experts to provide specific knowledge and training to all members, to undertake production cost analysis for cattle production, how to effectively report on niche activities, price negotiation with middlemen, and how to access to the financial support with low interest for cattle production.

What has CDAIS changed for you?

To me, the CDAIS project is very interesting but with big challenges, using participatory approaches to identify problems and solutions. This project is not a usual development as it focuses on capacity development of stakeholders so they can help each other for better progress on the activities in systematic way. The project supports capacity development through training and developing a more realistic way of working together and preapring production plans by themselves.

As a CDAIS project facilitator, I increased my skills through training on how to carry out the capacity need assessment of niches members, the lower Mekong initiative professional communication skills for leaders project, use of simulation games for problem analysis and assessing agroecology issues, production cost, finance and preparing business plans.