Data Literacy Training: A training in August was successfully held for Civil Society Organizations

From 30 August to 02 September 2022, Open Development Cambodia (ODC) continued its work to promote Data Literacy for the Innovations in Social Accountability Project (ISAC). Fifteen members of civil society organizations joined a four-day training held at Diakonia Center.

Following ODC’s May Data Literacy training, this session aimed to train members of organizations undertaking Social Accountability activities at the local level. The ODC team used a localized curriculum developed in partnership with ISAC partner Internews, using data related to education in Cambodia as an example.

Participants were selected based on their skill level and role as well as expressions of interest.

The course’s goal is to build basic skills to understand and work with data, to strengthen reporting and data-driven feedback to improve social accountability activities and mechanisms. A number of participants from the provinces took advantage of travel bursaries to attend.

ODC’s Senior Data Research and GIS Officer Vong Pisith guided the overall training flow and opened the first day by highlighting key points in the overall training modules the trainees would review. The agenda of the first day was basic principles of ‘Understanding Data’. ODC’s Data Research and GIS Specialist Mr. Loch Kalyan also shared details on ‘Finding Data’, highlighting key tools and resources for new users.

For the second day, ODC provided some additional laptops for the participants to use. Mr. Pisith introduced the module on ‘Data Collection’, to explain processes for collecting data. Mr. Kalyan highlighted processes of collecting data and ‘cleaning’ it, using tools such as Excel and Google Sheets.

‘Data Analysis’ was the focus of the third day. Mr. Pisith spoke on how to ‘Humanize Data’ and reflect useful concerns out of numbers and details. ODC’s ICT Camp Manager Mr. Ngov Chihor took this thinking further by presenting on ‘Data Stories’, how to construct simple narratives from data.

For the workshop’s concluding day, trainees worked to utilize their new knowledge and work in groups to develop a simple model narrative, or ‘data story’. This took most of the morning and also the afternoon. Participants identified key points from data and worked to assemble a simple linear narrative that would be easy to understand, guided by ODC team members.
After a brief recap, the ODC reviewed key points and encouraged the trainees to be open to using this new knowledge in their ongoing social accountability work.