Last week was Khmer New Year. It is a big holiday in Cambodia where traditionally everyone goes home to their village, and enjoys throwing water by the bucket and bag full, ostensibly to cleans each other of their sins, but actually, just to play… quite hard. I really wanted to see Hong Kong before leaving Asia, so took advantage of the three days leave and went for a short break. It was a great trip! I arrived back in Phnom Penh last night, and woke up at five this morning thinking about all I have to do over the next six weeks.

This week I am focussed on two pieces of work for our Headquarters. Firstly I am compiling some information from the countries in the region where HIB works, and the way in which they work with people with disabilities in communities. We are trying to identify common approaches, and some good practices to shape the way we design guidelines which will help the country programmes deliver good quality and high impact community projects in the future. Secondly, HIB is adopting what is called a rights based approach. However, many of us are not sure what this really means, so I am (will be!) doing some research and drafting some ideas specific to HIB relating to this.

Now I have to go as I have a lovely trip ahead. One of the staff of Cambodia Disabled People’s Organisation (CDPO, an organisation HIB has been working with over the last few years), is leaving and to say farewell we are going on a boat trip on the grand Mekong river. Most of the staff working for CDPO are people with disabilities themselves, and the boats are treacherous to get on – there are lots of steps down the bank, which then give way to mud, followed by a narrow plank up onto the boat… But everyone loves to go out on the river so much that these difficulties are worth it, and of course, we will raise awareness about how inaccessible the boats are just by using them.

• Some great things have been achieved
• From the Maldives
• My first week in the Maldives