Cambodia
The Community Links with Cambodia (CLC) Mesang Village Development Project is acommunity development project aimed at alleviating poverty in the villages of Mesang district, Prey Veng province, Cambodia. Mesang is one of the poorest of the 12 districts of Prey Veng province, and Prey Veng itself is one of the poorest provinces in Cambodia. A 2005 report by the Economic Institute of Cambodia stated that Mesang was one of the four most poverty-prone districts in Cambodia.
Since its inception in 2001, CLC has sought to address the issue of rural poverty at the community level by promoting child education, child rights, sustainable farming, community health, and general social improvement all with the overall objective of sustainably increasing income generation.
CLC has identified 70 families for the project who represent some of the poorest and vulnerable within Trorkeat village in Mesang district. These identified families will take part in various development initiatives organised by CLC with the aim of:
• Training and assisting 70 target families to develop organic home gardens and raise poultry, livestock and fish to provide food security.
• Training and assisting target families to generate income, supported by micro-loans.
• Children of target families will be encouraged and assisted to regularly attend school.
This project will strengthen and consolidate gains made in the target families and extend the project to a further 70 families in order to reach all poor and near poor families in Trorkeat. As the standard of living for Trorkeat families becomes adequate and sustainable, there is the potential for implementing the project in other identified poor villages in Mesang District.
Huge improvements have been made to the community and surrounding area, however plenty of work still remains.
Bloom is an educational/training development project that works directly with young women who are survivors of human trafficking in Phnom Penh, Cambodia – an area notorious for its trafficking of young girls. Bloom works in partnership with quality aftercare shelters that rescue and house survivors of trafficking.
The Centre exists to provide specialized hands-on vocational training for girls who have suffered human trafficking abuses, providing them with skills for future employment opportunities and a better life.
Currently Bloom teaches hospitality that includes classes in café/barista skills, cookery, hygiene, workplace safety and specialist courses in cake art and papercraft.
Bloom Training Centre also operates a thriving training café in Phnom Penh for its students and employees, featuring world class ‘cake art’ created by the talented girls of Bloom. These cupcakes and incredible cake designs have taken Phnom Penh by storm and enabled many girls the chance to find careers as high end cake decorators.
Bloom provides all students with Khmer & English literacy training as many girls have never had the chance to go to school. The training is also done through games, role play, and practical exercises.
The Cambodian Children’s Fund Education Program is an educational development project designed to assist impoverished and at-risk children from the Steung Meanchey community in Phnom Penh. Many have had little or no education and are often unable to read and write in their own language. Others have received some learning through the public school system, but, due to sub-standard materials and teacher-to-student ratios, have been unable to realize their full potential. The CCF Education Program is designed to reduce those deficits by offering dynamic academic content, accelerated learning opportunities and newfound promise and prospects.
The CCF Education Program consists of the following integrated components:
• Pre-school
• Public School Integration including Operation Rescue.
• General Education
• CCF Comprehensive Education including English, Khmer, Mathematics, Social Studies, Art and Drawing, Computer Studies and Home economics
• Cultural and Artistic Education including traditional dance, drama, traditional music and modern music
• Sports Activities including soccer, karate, yoga, volleyball and traditional Khmer games
• CCF Community Leadership Program
• Satellite Schools providing free evening classes
• CCF External Education
• Education Assistance Package
The Cambodia Tooth Angel Project is part of a collaborative national health project (Smiles & Hopes Project) aimed at addressing the dental and medical needs of vulnerable and destitute people in the poorest communities in Cambodia.
Established in 2010, the Smiles & Hopes Project works with the following organisations: The Cambodian Ministry of Health; The Faculty of Odonto-Stomatology at the University of Health Services, Phnom Penh; The Faculty of Dentistry at the International University, Phnom Penh; The Cambodian Dental Association; GCDHT Cambodia; The Global Child Dental Fund; One-2-One Cambodia; Cambodia World Family (GDG Project J549); and, Cambodia Tooth Angel Project (GDG Project J549).
The aims of this project are to provide:
• Basic dental and medical care for children in children’s home and poor communities.
• Training in basic health and hygiene for orphanage and community caregivers and health workers.
• A range of preventive health measures, which will reduce some of the more prevalent health and oral health problems in poor communities.
CATP has been providing mobile dental and medical services to beneficiaries in 3 Phnom Penh prisons and 3 provincial prisons.
Our aims are to:
1. Raising the Standard of Financial Management
The great work of NGO’s can be seriously at risk without effective financial management, so we undertake the following activities to improve this:
- Raise the Standard Seminar Series – Financial Management, including financial policies, procedures, budgeting, accounting systems, accountability, documentation, financial reports, making decisions, and auditing.
- Training and Mentoring Individual Accountants to increase their skills and confidence to be more effective
- Facilitate start of special interest groups for local Accountants as a regular networking forum for ongoing professional development
2. Growing capacity for business development & sustainability
- coaching in Business development for NGO’s wanting sustainability
- facilitating Village Savings Programs as a way to financial sustainability for families
- Mentoring young entrepreneurs - equipping those who don't have access to resources such as international training.
M'Lop Tapang Community Outreach (MTCO) is a holistic care development project established in 2003 with the goal of giving Cambodian street children access to the learning tools, resources, and opportunities they needed to build a better future.
The project works with over 2,500 street living and working young people and their families at 9 centres in the Sihanoukville area. MTCO offers top these beneficiaries access to medical care, education, counselling, and protection from all types of abuse. In addition, MTCO conducts some micro-enterprising activities to assist single mothers and poor families to establish businesses for income generation to break the cycle of poverty that leads to children to a life on the streets. The ambition of the project is to assist former street children to safely reintegrate back to their families and the wider community.
Additionally, MTCO’s social workers conduct grass-roots advocacy activities to increase awareness in the community about issues affecting street children. The project works closely with schools, the police and local authorities to help make the community a safer place for all children.
Started in 2004, Community Enabling Healthcare (CEH) is a development project with a strong focus on training, education and development. Its capacity-building components aim to improve the standard of health and living conditions for people within the poorest communities of Cambodia.
CEH is dedicated to preventative healthcare as its core policy. To implement this, CEH has trained and developed 30 Healthcare Assistants (HCAs). These HCAs are deployed across 18 locations in five provinces across Cambodia. Each HCA is provided with medical facilities and equipment which enable them to deal with health related problems specific to the local communities.
These HCAs act as peer educators and facilitators in their local community – providing not only basic medical services but educating and training the local beneficiaries in preventative behaviour against critical health issues.
CEH uses information from the World Health Organisation and the Cambodian government’s Health Department to coordinate its efforts with national and international efforts to improve the health services in the country.
Our ultimate objective at This Life Cambodia is to help local people and groups become fully self-sustainable. We provide educational and training opportunities, secure project funding, build infrastructure and create networks to support their needs. Over time, this support can decrease as communities begin to operate independently.
We have eight sub-projects to achieve our objective:
• School Development Program – ‘Organising for This Life’ - Providing for education needs in economically disadvantaged and under-served communities.
• Student Scholarship Program - Supports and reintegrates students back into the public education system by alleviating the financial burden of schooling.
• Pedalling Out Of Poverty - A second-hand bicycle will give a child the ability to attend secondary school and continue their education.
• Light Up a Life With Solar - Enables students to study in the evening by providing families with solar lamps.
• This Life Beyond Bars: Education for All – Increase educational rights of children in prison and to defend their rights.
• Construction Programs - We work in collaboration with the community to provide the necessary skills, resources and capacity building required for the completion of a successful construction project.
• Technical Advice and Capacity Building for Community Organisations - We support organisations by focusing on both organizational and individual capacity building programs.
• Vocational Training Centre Project - The training centre is designed as a vocational facility, which will provide skills and training to disadvantaged young Khmer women and youth.
All Ears Cambodia currently provides support for children and adults under the wing of 32 local and international agencies. Development focus is on primary health care education, intervention and prevention of hearing related illnesses. It offers a variety of medical services to benefit these communities such as providing and repairing hearing aids, hearing check-ups and training on ear health care. The team is operational in 8 provinces across Cambodia.
It is estimated that one in three rural children have an ear condition which is often underestimated, unrecognised and untreated until it becomes serious. Access to specialist care remains a critical problem in Cambodia due to the countries poor infrastructure and public transportation systems.
The project also provides outreach clinics for marginalized fishing communities on the Tonle Sap River. Villages located there depend on fishing, alternative livelihood options being limited. All villages on the river are prone to seasonal flooding which are only accessible by boat. They represent children and adults from some of the poorest and most isolated families in Cambodia.
The principle aim of this project is to provide a facility to increase opportunities for children from the local community to receive a basic formal education. Since retention of students is a pertinent issue within these communities, this centre aims to provide free education to those families otherwise unable to provide such opportunities to their children.
The centre provides future options to these children by encouraging transition to secondary education or other vocational training. The centre also provides counselling services as well as provides guidance to build social and practical capacities within the community. During the last two years, there has been a concentration on capacity building and governance. Mr Channy Nop is now the CEO of the organisation.
Founded in 2007, Singing Kites is a grass roots aid organisation working hand in hand with the people of Tanop, an impoverished and remote rural village in Takao Province, Cambodia. It was established to help the community move forward, out of the cycle of poverty, working towards sustainable futures through access to education, the establishment of micro businesses, and other sustainable job encouraging opportunities.
Currently Singing Kites offers free education to over 1000 children and youths, providing them and their families free English lessons, IT classes, Khmer literacy, Art and Music.
Fixed on developing the community as a whole, Singing Kites also offers free medical and dental treatment, implementing clean water projects and well as offering courses on life skills, improved health and agricultural practices.
With an added focus on capacity building, Singing Kites offers vocational training programs, micro-loans for businesses, as well as only hiring Cambodian staff to work on our projects and in doing so, supporting the local community and economy.
The 2H project was founded in 2000 by third-year midwifery student, Kate Taylor of UniSA. Each year Taylor and nine volunteer’s journey to Cambodia for about three weeks. They performed cataract surgery in one of the most remote areas of Cambodia. The team also carried with them thousands of dollars worth of medical supplies and vitamins.
In 2005 the project raised enough money to perform more than 300 operations for cataract removal in Cambodian children. The cataract work will be ongoing with the introduction of screening for school-age children.
Project Manager: Kate Taylor
Unaccompanied Children Association (UNACAS) is a registered Cambodian NGO that provides shelter and care for orphans about 25 kilometres south of the capital Phnom Penh. There are currently 108 children in care under the age of 18. Direct funding acquired from raising pigs and other income generating activities supports the further education and development of the children.
The project has two major aims:
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To be sustainable through pig raising activities, other livestock and agriculture.
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To develop and implement a livelihood skills training program for the older children to gain employment when they have finished school.
Livelihood skills training may include independent funded scholarships to all children who show aptitude and interest, meaning that some can attend university. All children have a skills assessment program in order to determine appropriate future training.
Project Manager: Bun Sela
In 2008, Open Arms established a Hairdressing and Beauty Salon to provide employment for its young people within the village of Konchey, two hours from Phnom Penh. The salon quickly incorporated a Training Centre, which offered new skills for trainees who might otherwise be at risk of trafficking, abuse or slavery.
In February 2009 Open Arms relocated to new premises and during 2009 provided a safe home for up to 27 young people, including the 12 young people (now aged 15-23) remaining from the original group. A related operation exists in Phnom Penh, providing graduates of the program with opportunities in the city.
Open Arms offers hope and teaches skills that will empower young people to create new lives and careers. In 2010, Open Arms plans to expand the Training Centre, consolidate a newly opened tearoom, commence a tailor shop and provide English lessons to impoverished children in the village of Konchey.
The education syllabus includes literacy, vocational skills (such as sewing and beauty) and computer skills. Further development projects include the provision of clean water facilities in order to minimize risk of water-borne disease adversely affecting the lives of the local community.
Project Manager: Grahame and Sandra Wade.
Helping Hands Cambodia (HHC) is a multi-faceted grass roots community development project empowering Cambodians living in poverty to be able to be self-sufficient and live sustainably. HHC works in a number of villages in Siem Reap Province. The philosophy of the project is to give a hand up, not a hand out.
The underlying principle of HHC’s work is the importance of education in overcoming poverty and other connected issues. For example, teaching someone about sanitation will enable them to understand the importance of a toilet and clean drinking water supplies which will have the flow-on effect of reducing the spread of some diseases in the community.
The project initiatives and activities currently conducted by HHC include:
• operating a school with 250 students
• operating a centre for adult vocational education and social skills
• providing medical services
• providing agriculture training and installation of irrigation systems
• assisting communities in infrastructure improvement projects
• educating beneficiaries on sanitation and establishing clean water facilities (wells and water filters)
• operating the “work for a bicycle” project (Each household in a village qualifies for a bike when one member of the family provides unpaid labour for a minimum of 5 days constructing or repairing roads in their village. A bicycle provides a family with much-needed access to jobs, school, healthcare and economic opportunities)
• establishing community income generation project.
All HHC development initiatives are developed in close consultation with local beneficiary communities and involves them in all facets of the project, including implementation.
Empowering Cambodia believe that education is a key to giving poor and vulnerable children both hope and a bright future. In keeping with their vision, Empowering Cambodia is establishing children’s educational centres throughout the city and provincial districts.
Each centre is designed to ensure that the children study in a holistic environment that is conducive to supporting the child. The child’s welfare, education, schooling, tutoring, spiritual, cultural and artistic development are a top priority. This has seen tangible results, with children from the centre excelling at local government schools. Consequently,
Empowering Cambodia ensures that the program is both advantageous to the child and in accordance with the main theories of child development.
Empowering Cambodia’s Community Relocation & Development Project relocates poor families who have been forced from their homes, into new residences that provide a friendly and safe environment where both the children and their parents receive education and training related to the health and welfare of their family. This is complemented by business enterprise opportunities.
Furthermore, medical care facilities are available to the community through the centre, including a dental and de-worming program. In addition, Empowering Cambodia has installed a water filtration system at the centre, and improvements in water provision are ongoing.
As part of Empowering Cambodia’s Education Project, they design curriculum templates in areas such as management, leadership and teacher training, which are presented to aspiring Khmer leaders who wish to effect change within their nation.
Empowering Cambodia’s sewing & piglet scheme has proved to be an extremely popular initiative amongst the locals. The impact of these simple schemes is amazing!
Cambodia is a source, transit, and destination country for human trafficking. The Destiny Rescue Cambodia project seeks to increase the overall awareness and dangers associated with under aged sexual exploitation, and work to alleviate these problems at a village level. The project assists young women and children who have been rescued or are at high risk of sexual exploitation by facilitating activities to ensure young women and children are given the necessary skills to reintegrate into mainstream society. The activities under this project emphasize the up-skilling and capacity building of participants through education, vocational training, health/medical and psycho-social counselling initiatives.
The project operates a coffee house where the women in the program are able to work in a safe and secure environment, learning skills in the hospitality sector and on running a small business. With the successful operation of the cafe, Destiny Rescue has started another business that will train and equip the girls, a sewing centre.
Where beneficiaries are able to be reunited with their family, the project initiates open dialogue between the two groups to prevent victims from being re-trafficked. Another aspect of the project is working with families from slum (dump) communities in micro-enterprise and education, with the aim of increasing their income to improve opportunities for families to stay united and care for their own children.
The Tree of Life project is a community development project operating around the Steung Meanchey dump in Phnom Penh. This fast-growing dump (a known haven for diseases with high levels of dioxin and arsenic evident) has become home to many Cambodians from the eastern provinces of the country. These families have often moved to Cambodia’s capital looking for work, and when unable to find employment are forced to eke out a living by foraging in the dump.
This project, together with several other related projects, seeks to help these people to establish a better way of life and improve the future opportunities for the children and youth of this vulnerable community.
The Tree of Life project has established and operates a kindergarten facility – providing children in the community with an opportunity to receive an early childhood education. There is a particular focus on establishing basic hygiene routines in order to reduce the risk of the spread of disease.
The project also operates a medical centre in order to provide medical support for the community surrounding the dump, which is also an educational facility for teaching locals about disease prevention. In addition, the medical centre specialises in maternal health.
Awareness Cambodia has moved on to the establishment of a growing number of projects in Kompong Speu, the poorest province in Cambodia. Providing a number of humanitarian and developmental aid projects within Cambodia, the organisation aims to increase health and nutrition standards and reduce the transmission of disease. Awareness Cambodia has implemented a diverse range of projects. These initiatives include:
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Care for 80 children orphaned by HIV/AIDS at Sunshine House.
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Piggery at Eco-farm to provide sustainability for Sunshine House.
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Provide Medical care for local community.
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House of Progress was established in 2006 as a home for teenagers that have graduated from Sunshine House primary school and are continuing their high school education or vocational training.
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An internet café has been established in order to introduce students to new skills, social interaction and new methodologies of learning and undertaking business opportunities.
Awareness Cambodia has a number of memorandums of understanding with the Cambodian government to provide health care and education. The project manager Dr Gary Hewett received the Order of Australia Medal in 2009.
Sovanapoom Care has been active in Cambodian communities since 1997. Project J522 is a multifaceted community development project that combines education, vocational training and sustainability initiatives with the aim of offering greater opportunities for young people.
The Sovanapoom School in Kandal Province has been educating students for ten years and many of these young people have now progressed from academic study to vocational training. Youth are given opportunities for training in construction, teaching, cooking, office administration and child care. The construction course includes hands on training through the building of the Community Centre’s facilities, which is an ongoing program. Trainee teachers’ on the job training supports the activities of Sovanapoom School – trainee teachers are helping to deliver an international standard curriculum and teaching classes under the supervision of qualified volunteer teacher.
The project also integrates sustainability initiatives into its agriculture program in Banteay Meanchey Province, where students from J522 are learning farming and working towards the goal of having this project financially sustainable. Currently, this farm is growing a variety of crops and raising chickens. Future plans include natural fish farming, pigs, goats, and cattle, as well as growing vegetable crops, all utilising organic farming methods without chemicals.
SHE Rescue Home is a holistic development project catering to the specific needs of disenfranchised girls who are at risk or who have been rescued from being trafficked in the Cambodian sex industry.
Based in Phnom Penh, SHE provides each of these girls with a safe and secure place where counselling, medical attention, and educational/vocational training are provided. Educational activities include language classes in both Khmer and English, along with accounting, business, literacy and computer skills.
SHE endeavours to assist these individuals overcome the traumas they have experienced and work towards a successful re-integration into their families and the wider Cambodian community. Where possible, SHE also seeks to work with the families of these girls in order to bring holistic healing and empowerment to the entire family unit, which includes providing counselling and alternative income sources.
The girls involved in the project have the opportunity to utilise the skills learnt to participate in micro enterprise initiatives. This makes the project financially self-sufficient and enables the beneficiaries to employ their skills in a practical manner and for income generation activities that provide them with a sustainable future.
Cambodian World Family (CWF) is a healthcare development project designed to improve the dental/oral health of Cambodians as well as raise the standard of the dental healthcare system of the country.
Operating in the country’s capital Phnom Penh, the project runs a morning dental clinic that is available to children and young people from the local community. Approximately 10,000 individuals are treated per year. The remainder of the day involves vocational training for locals who wish to learn skills relevant to dental assistants. The project provides dental care for more than 13 other GDG projects, a similar number of other NGOs as well as the local community.
CWF hires a number of older trainees to assist in the operation of the clinic who are given salary, accommodation, education on five-week dental therapist course at the local university and medical in exchange for their assistance. This scheme has resulted in tangible results. One female student ranked fifth out-of 35 students who completed the dental therapist course. Some students are also studying business and accounting.
Essentially, CWF provides free dental and oral health treatment’ education on oral hygiene, as well as vocational training This will empower
Cambodian Hope Organization (CHO) is a local non-government organisation which works with disadvantaged people living in the Cambodia-Thailand border town of Poipet.
Poipet is home to many Cambodians who hope to find work in neighbouring Thailand. Most are unable to and are relegated to the huge slum communities of the area, many becoming drawn into the town’s underground world of illegal gambling, prostitution, and sex trafficking.
The project aims to strengthen the quality of life of these disadvantaged individuals in the community. Through improving protection, food security, health, and skills of the local beneficiaries Cambodian Hope Organization assists individuals and the community in becoming strong, self-reliant and independent.
Three primary goals of CHO are:
• To promote enhanced primary health care and HIV/AIDS care via training, mixed media presentations and liaising with local authorities and other organizations, and facilitating HIV home-care support
• To promote home vegetable gardening through training, community and school demonstrations and other follow up support.
• To promote awareness of child trafficking by providing training mixed media presentations, and liaising with local authorities and other organizations.
The EnGender Program is a vocational training project focusing primarily on the mothers of children who are currently in day care at the Cambodian Children’s Fund Community Centre. Based in Stung Mean Chey, Phnom Penh, the program offers training and employment opportunities in textiles for the mothers and women of the local community – often whom are uneducated and unskilled from the surrounding slum areas.
Textile training is offered in pattern-making, cutting and sewing which provide the women with much needed skills for employment. The program also provides some jobs for local women as trainees and bag makers, where they are able to work in a safe and secure working environment with fair pay and working conditions.
In addition, personal management skills are taught to the participant beneficiaries to ensure a self-sustainable future. Personal management skills such as budgeting, negotiating rents, buying in bulk or quantity and debt management are taught – thus empowering them to effectively manage their own lives, job/enterprise opportunities and strengthen the family unit.
Further, regular counselling is provided during working hours on such issues as domestic violence, drug abuse, alcoholism, sexual exploitation, and gambling and to give access to effective intervention if required.
Stitches of Hope is a community development project working in Cambodia since 2005. Based in the village of Chrey Vien, the project aims to enrich and empower the lives of the children, young people, families and elderly in the rural provinces of Cambodia for a sustainable future.
This multifaceted project endeavours to achieve through a variety of development activities in the areas of education/vocational training, water sanitation, and micro-enterprising/income generation activities. The project has assisted the local community to establish 4 new wells, providing fresh clean water and greatly reducing cases of water-borne diseases in the village. Currently the project is establishing a multipurpose Community Centre in the village with goals to educate the children and provide skills training and small business opportunities for the villagers.
The centre will be used to support micro-enterprises in sewing and weaving by villagers (providing weaving-looms and sewing-machines) as well as an education and vocational centre for the children and unemployed in the local community. The Tailoring shop in Phnom Penh has been given support by Stitches of Hope, and the young people are developing amazing sewing skills.
In addition the project runs a sponsorship program for orphans, needy children, students who desire to further their education, families and many elderly who have no means of support.
Future goals include finance for a new Community Centre at Mongkolborei, and education opportunities for 80 children in Kom Pong Speu province.
For further information about any of these GDG approved aid & development projects, please contact the GDG Project Department
