The research that I conducted at Epic Arts
provided me with an insight in to the perceptions, experiences and practices of activity
participants, facilitators and programme managers at the organisation
and I felt that it was imperative that this information be shared effectively
with staff at Epic Arts. During their interviews and in additional discussions,
a number of staff at Epic Arts shared that they are often involved in a variety
of research projects, but that they find it hard to understand the final
results as the ‘academic’ language used in reports can be difficult to
comprehend, as this manager explained,
“I
have given interviews before and been involved in projects where people are
doing research in Cambodia, but when I try to read the report I find it hard to
understand. The words are too complicated and I cannot understand what has been
discovered. I have good English, but I struggle with ‘academic’ words and I
really want to know what has been discovered, but just can’t access it.”
As
this research project was with and about the activity participants, facilitators
and programme managers at Epic Arts, I felt that for the
information to be accessed by the people themselves, a more ‘simple’ version of
the findings should be created. Once this version was created it would be far
easier, in the future, to translate this in to the local language and to create
activities and presentations surrounding the results that staff at Epic Arts
could understand and then explain to others independently. I decided that a
simple book that is easy to read, with little or no ‘academic’ language would
be the first step in enabling people
at the organisation to access the research findings and
that this book could provide the basis for the Cambodian managers to be able to
effectively explain what Epic Arts does, to other interested parties.
In the recent National Disability Strategy
Plan 2015-2018 for Cambodia, the lack of a forum to enable people to share
lessons learned and best practice in working with people with disabilities in
Cambodia was highlighted,
“There is a lack of a forum, which represents the
different persons and children with disabilities, for sharing experiences,
knowledge and good practice of all disability stakeholders in order to apply
improvement of disability implementation as a result of good lessons learned.”
(National Disability
Strategy Plan 2015-2018 for Cambodia. 2014).
A book that
can be easily translated in to Khmer that highlights what Epic Arts is doing
and what it has been learnt about working positively with people with
disabilities in Cambodia, could act as a starting point for discussion and grow
in to a training programme for other people in Cambodia to access.
A manager at Epic Arts explained the importance
of learning from this research project so that they, as well as me, can fully understand
the work that they and their staff and students are doing at Epic Arts and to
have an insight in to the experiences of activity participants, facilitators and
programme managers at the organisation,
“I want to improve my knowledge about the inclusive arts that we do at
Epic Arts so that I can talk about it and feel confidence to share my knowledge
with other people. I think if I know more about the inclusive arts that is in
action at Epic Arts then I can teach others and more people can learn to be
inclusive in Cambodia.”
So I worked to simplify and adapt my research findings to make a book that could be shared. I then worked with a designer to bring the book to life. This book will be published by Epic Arts later this year and will also be translated to Khmer. Epic Arts plan to sell the book through the 'Epic Creations' marketplace and the 'Epic Arts Cafe in Kampot . Here are some sample pages of the book.
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