👋Have you ever heard 👂of the Steung Meanchey garbage dump🗑️ in Cambodia🇰🇭, also called Smokey 💨Mountain? Until 2009, hundreds of children👩💼👨💼 were picking through garbage to sell for recycling♻️ on this 6-hectare dumping ground. It was one of the most toxic☣️ environments imaginable. Since 2004, the Cambodian Children’s Fund (CCF) has been fighting to transform impoverished kids into tomorrow’s leaders👨💼👩💼.
I would be surprised 😯if you have never heard of🎥 X-Men, Star Wars, Braveheart or Titanic. The man behind them is Scott Neeson, former President of 🎞️20th Century Fox International. Before starting a new role at Sony in 2003, he took a 5-week🧳✈️ trip to Cambodia🇰🇭, where he discovered children🎞️👨👧 working everywhere on that garbage dump. He could not let that go. One year later, he sold his fancy cars🚗, yacht🛥️ and house 🏠to relocate to Phnom Penh and started the Cambodian Children’s Fund.
CCF aims🎯 to provide best-in-class education 👩🏫to marginalized children living near the dumping 🗑️ground. Their outreach teams 🌟create the right environment for education, with support for basic needs such as housing🏠, food🍏 and health⚕️. Then, they provide access to their own primary and secondary schools 🏢with one objective: support students all the way to university 💪and make sure they can become the leaders of tomorrow👩💼👨💼.
Their secondary school is impressive🌟. It looks like a top-tier private school🏢, but it is located in the middle of one of the poorest areas in the country🇰🇭. Since its🚀 inception, they have trained 💪😀1,898 students, provided 461 homes and distributed 45 tons of rice at a heavily subsidized price.
🌟🌟🌟At Our Own Pace And Scale, Everyone Can Aspire To Change The World🌟🌟🌟
Tag: Cambodia
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After Overseeing Hollywood Movies Such as X-Men and Star Wars, Scott Neeson Quit Everything to Support Marginalized Kids
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The Futures Factory, an NGO Led Shopping Center For Social Enterprises in Cambodia
✌️As you know, I travelled 🌏this summer🌞 to Cambodia 🇰🇭for a full immersion with Friends International, a leading social enterprise🚀 saving😀 lives and building⚒️ futures for the most marginalized children 👦👧in Southeast Asia. Their secret sauce is brilliant🌟: they build social enterprises to teach 👨🏫young people practical & soft skills in promising industries🍴💇♂️, before helping them find a job 💼across the country.
Friends International created multiple social enterprises: garages🏍️, restaurants🍴, hairdressers💇♂️, electrical services🌟, beauty salons❇️, apparel shops👚… They were a real success🌟 with the expat community. However, Friends International’s mission🚀 went further. They wanted to involve every stakeholder in their adventure, including locals. To meet their goals🎯, they had to create a customer experience equivalent to that of regular shopping🛍️ centers.
They took up the challenge and opened🔓 the Futures Factory 🛍️, a melting pot of creativity🖍️, social enterprise🚀 and community collaboration👋. Customers can find all the Friends International shops, services and restaurants 🍴, as well as traditional cafés☕ and eco-friendly, socially responsible shops🏪. The experience is stunning! 👍Families can enjoy concerts, activities and shopping while, at the same time, young people from the most marginalized communities are trained for promising jobs😀.
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Darong Transferred 5 schools for Deaf and Blind Children to the Ministry of Education in Cambodia
✌️We met Darong Chour, director of the 🚀NGO☀️ Krousar Thmey, a leading NGO based in Cambodia 🇰🇭supporting blind and deaf children👨👧. The adventure started because, in the 1990s, there was no infrastructure🏗️ to support blind and deaf children.
Education 👨🏫was the key🗝️ priority. To make sure children got a proper education👨🎓, the team developed a Khmer version of Braille📒, started teaching sign☦️ language and translated the entire Cambodian curriculum. And it worked really well!💪🙂
We met Darong a few weeks after a major announcement📣. After 30 years of co-development with the Cambodian government, the government approved✔️ the transfer 🤗of their 5 schools👨🎓 for blind and deaf children, including more than 200 teachers👨🏫👩🏫, to the Ministry of Education. This year, more than 300 blind and 750 deaf children 😀🏆🚀are supported by Krousar Thmey.
🌟🌟🌟At Our Own Pace And Scale, Everyone Can Aspire To Change The World🌟🌟🌟 -
Frederic Is Leading A Team of 600 Water Entrepreneurs In Cambodia
👋We had the chance 🍀to cross paths🚶 with Frédéric Dubois 👨, who leads a team of 600 water 💦entrepreneurs🚀. In rural areas⛏️, water contamination is the leading cause of disease🤒 and death ☠️. Does the association 1001 fontaines ring a bell?📣 An exciting 😃adventure around access to drinking water 💦in rural areas!
They build👷♂️ turnkey water kiosks, which are donated 🎁to the villages. The kiosks are run by micro-entrepreneurs🚀, who handle the production and home delivery of water bottles🍶. Their system is 100% sustainable🌳 while providing quality water💧 at an unbeatable price💰: $0.40 for 20 liters!
Every day☀️, 500,000 people 🏆✌️access drinking water through their network of 200 kiosks. Their goal🎯 is one million beneficiaries by 2020.
🌟🌟🌟At Our Own Pace And Scale, Everyone Can Aspire To Change The World🌟🌟🌟
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Rithy Ambitions To Create An Eco-Community To Protect 100 000 Hectares From Deforestation
👋At 17 years old, Rithy Thul👦 had lost almost everything 🙇… However, he is an entrepreneur at heart♥️ and a fighter⚔️! Now in his thirties, he is a central 🎯figure of the Cambodian🇰🇭 startup ecosystem, with a company producing state-of-the-art computers💻 combining power 🌀and accessibility🔓, the first co-working 🏢space launched in Cambodia, and the status of the country’s most active business angel💵.
Yet his dream☁️ goes far beyond! Thousands of hectares of forest 🌳are cut down each year by businessmen with little respect💥 for the environment⛰️. Rithy has a solution💡. By buying👛 300 hectares of land strips bordering the mountains, he estimates that he can save🌟 up to 100,000 hectares of forest.
His project is to launch an eco-friendly community 👨👨👧👦with 70% reforestation, 15% eco-tourism📷 infrastructure and 15% agriculture👨🌾. To ensure long-term protection🥽, he aims to create a network🕸️ of 1,000 entrepreneurs👦👩 working on environmental protection, including those he has already funded💵. Guess what! This project is not just a dream☁️, it is already under way🚀!
🌟🌟🌟At Our Own Pace And Scale, Everyone Can Aspire To Change The World🌟🌟🌟
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Friends International Is Convinced About The Benefits Of Tech and Aims At Being Fully Digitalized
👋After completing our mission 🚀at Friends International, which was to support 🤝the identification and implementation of a recruitment platform to ensure the matching 🔥/ tracking🔎 of hundreds of beneficiaries👦👧, we shared our report📄. We recommended the implementation of two integrated solutions🖥️: Oscar and Salesforce. What we really appreciated was their genuine desire to digitalize all their programs. We had interesting conversations about the implementation of these solutions, team training, the recruitment of their future IT lead / CTO💻, cost 👛optimization…
In general, we have noticed that many NGOs see digitalization as a powerful 💪way to create a sustainable 🚀competitive advantage (centralized data💿 collection, automated reports📄, real-time information ℹ️…). At the same time, the range of available solutions is growing📈. Companies like Salesforce have created specific packages for NGOs, startups are developing dedicated SaaS solutions, and some NGOs have partnered 🤲 to share the costs of developing a 🌠common tech solution…
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Digitalization As A Powerful Tool To Make NGO’s Operations More Efficient
👋Convincing a donor to🌠 support an 👨🏫educational program is much more concrete and attractive 🧲than asking them to finance 💰office rent or IT 💻software, which are just as important. Many NGOs are therefore forced to under-staff or✂️ cut certain key expenses, particularly administrative ones.
To our knowledge, 3 levers can help cover these costs:
1) Securing unrestricted funds that are not tied to specific projects 📝(e.g. EPIC Foundation)
2) Launching self-financing 🌀 activities to cover part of the budget
3) Digitalization🖥️, by integrating a range of IT solutions into their activitiesThis summer☀️, our mission 🚀at Friends International is part of their digitalization strategy, which aims to set up a central 🎯information system. Who would not dream of collecting data💾 in real time or automating reports? For some NGOs, a single report can take up to a week to consolidate. Our goal 🚀is to help them identify and implement a recruitment👨💼👩💼 platform to ensure the matching / tracking of hundreds of beneficiaries of their Vocational Training Programs with companies seeking to recruit. The stakes are many: cost💰, integration, UX, security, internal resources, API… A few more days ☀️of work and we will provide them with our report.
Romain Sion Friends International Cambodia
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Friends International Set to Turn Street Kids Into Business Owners
👋Friends International was founded 🚀25 years ago by a French 🇨🇵social entrepreneur, Sebastien Marot. This NGO 🌠can be considered as a social enterprise. Their mission is clear: protecting marginalized children 👦👧and their families and training👨🏫 them with professional skills leading to a full time employment 👨💼in Cambodia 🇰🇭& South East Asia. We have been impressed by the professionalism of the teams and their structured processes from the care of distressed families 👨👩👧👦to full time job placement.
Last year with Friends, it was: 5 countries in South East Asia / 6000 children supported to go to school📗 / 1400 young people accompanied to be employed / 7700 parents supported in the care of their children🌠🌠🌠
Saving Lives: When a youth in distress is identified within a community, the “Saving lives” teams provide a fast⏭️ & straight forward support (drugs💊, health⚕️, violence issues💥…) and perform an assessment on how they could support him in the best way.
Building Futures: A professional training is then proposed to young people👦 by the team “Building Futures”. 7 high potential job tracks💼 have been identified on which they have built training programs coupled with the launch 🚀of real businesses. Students and teachers work together in classrooms and then practice in “real-life” environment. In Phnom Penh🇰🇭, Friends launched the Futures Factory, where a restaurant🍴, a hairdressing salon💇, a beauty salon❇️, a fashion retail concept store🏪, a welding business🥽, an electricity company and a garage 🚗coexist together. By setting up social enterprises across 5 countries, young people👦👧 are trained with the right skillsets, while self-financing 30% of the budget💰 of the organization. It’s amazing, isn’t it? Once they pass their degree🎓, which is recognized by the state, Friends helps them to get a job thanks to their network of partners. We have checked the list🗒️ of requests from Friends’ partners, it’s a long one, well-done! ;-)🌠
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Benoit Created The Khmer Braille For Blind Children In Cambodia
👋Do you know the life ⚕️expectancy of a Cambodian🇰🇭 child becoming blind in the 90’s ? 2 years! 😢Benoit is the founder👨💼 of Krousar Thmey (“New Family”) a leading NGO 🚀based in Cambodia supporting blind and deaf children👦👧. Becoming blind or deaf in Cambodia was like a death ☠️sentence because there was neither support nor infrastructure🏢 to address those problems🔃. Most of them were left behind or hidden in houses🏠.
Benoit started his career 💼as a financial controller at Accor Hotel🏢 in Bangkok🇹🇭. He had a comfortable 🛋️and hassle-free life😀. However, everything changed in the early nineties when he visited a Cambodian refugee 🏚️camp in the eastern part of Thailand. Shocked😲 by the living conditions, he quit everything to launch🌠 Krousar Thmey 🌠and support Cambodian refugees in Thailand.
After the peace 🏳️agreement, he relocated to Cambodia 🇰🇭to support abandoned children👦 with a focus on blind and deaf children. Education 👩🏫was the key priority. To face that challenge⛰️, they developed a Khmer version of braille and they started teaching sign language. After huge efforts💦, Benoit opened schools🔠 across the whole country and employed up to 🚀400 staff.
This year, 2700 children have been supported by Krousar Thmey 😀😀including 300 young blind and 750 deaf children✌️. Today, they can be extremely proud because after almost 30 years of co-development with the Cambodian government, the prime minister of Cambodia👨💼 agreed to take responsibility for all the schools and teachers, the entire structure being transferred to the ministry of education👩🏫. It is a major success😋, a great example of real development being achieved with a national programme of education being started and developed by a private NGO 👍and being transferred to the government, which is now in charge of the continuation of those schools.
🌠🌠🌠At our own pace and scale, everyone can aspire to change the world.🌠🌠🌠
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