Greetings! I would like to introduce myself, Ann Wigglesworth, and I’m delighted to have now returned to IWDA as Programs Team Leader, my second time working for the organisation.

In 1996 I travelled to Cambodia to work with the IWDA Cambodia office (now Banteay Srei). At that time we were planning the implementation of an AusAID funded project ‘Food for Change’, a project including ‘Cow Banks’ and agriculture training that was set up to respond to the dire situation of the large numbers of traumatised widows in the aftermath of Khmer Rouge atrocities and ‘killing fields’. According to Thavy, one of our first Cambodian co-coordinators, at the time ‘people were only thinking of how to fill their stomachs’. But the cows became much more than an economic asset, contributing to the healing process for widows by becoming a part of their family. They symbolised hope and renewal.

In the field of international development, it is all too rare to have the chance to revisit communities to observe project impact over the long term. It has thus been an exciting opportunity to return last month to Cambodia and the IWDA supported Banteay Srei projects after 15 years.