Overview:
Mondulkiri province is situated in the north-eastern highlands of Cambodia, close to the Vietnamese border. It is home to a large population of indigenous groups, primarily the Bunong people. With cultural and livelihood connections to the forest, they remain among the most impoverished in the nation. Our partners want to help innovative indigenous farmers create sustainable livelihoods and take advantage of appropriate technology and the resources that are theirs. They will work with communities to identify resilience strategies, improve small-scale farming, build cooperation and organisation amongst the farmers and mobilise them for forest protection and rights linked to economic empowerment.
What we like about it:
Our partners are strongly committed to a community-based approach to education and development that respects indigenous culture and self-determination. Together they will strengthen community engagement and collaboration for sustainable indigenous livelihoods and relevant education using foundations of their own mother tongue across the northeastern region of Cambodia. The project will address issues which hinder economic empowerment and equip them to take steps towards sustainable farming. It will address environmental issues such as their decreasing supply of non-timber forest products and climate change and social issues such as lack of education, debt to microfinance institutions and alcoholism/drugs.
Budget: $14,000 for one year. This project is tax deductible and 100% gets there.
The Need:
The Bunong are amongst the poorest people in Cambodia, marginalised by decades of war and displacement, with forest and biodiversity losses exacerbating this poverty. The root cause of their problems is having to negotiate the national education and political system derived from a foreign cultural context with foreign values in a language that is not understood by many of them. These systems do not pass on indigenous minority culture.
Life Change:
