I wanted to share some snippets of the grant proposal that we submitted at the end of June. It’s not the full proposal, that’s 20 pages long with around 40 supporting documents, but just a short snippet on the proposed project. As I mentioned in the previous post, this brings two of our local partners together and I’m excited to see where this collaboration might lead in the future.

A core assumption of the proposal is that peacebuilding is more effective when it’s coupled with knowledge and techniques to address underlying concerns that drive conflict.

This proposal addresses issues of interethnic conflict and food and income insecurity through a two-pronged approach that provides training and support to rural communities to address ecologically caused food and income insecurity, while also training youth peacebuilders across the country on interethnic peacebuilding strategies and their connection to ecological insecurity.  

The interethnic community development component engages Poor 1 and Poor 2 farmers in remote interethnic communities with training on climate change adaptive agriculture techniques, household business skills, and market access to increase food and income security. Participatory approaches including a Participatory Rural Appraisal assessment, baseline surveys, community disaster mapping, and a training and needs assessment, as well as mutual support, training, and feedback processes. Sustainability will be enhanced via inclusion of district and local community leaders and traders/middlemen, and the creation and strengthening of farmers’ producer groups to promote increased economic power via increased fair prices and sharing of insights, successful practices, and mutual support. Village volunteers will be trained to provide ongoing support and capacity building on these target themes to local community members to ensure long-term success and impactful change.    

The interethnic youth peacebuilding component engages youth (ages 18-28) from interethnic communities across Cambodia with training courses on Applied Conflict Transformation and facilitated homestays in ethnic/interethnic communities. The homestays will take place in two vulnerability communities facing significant ecological challenges that threaten their food and income security. The Kompong Chhnang province homestay will take place in a community of the stateless ‘boat people’ who are the most marginalized and discriminated against ethnic minority in Cambodia. The Kratie province homestay will take place in an interethnic community in Sambour district, Kratie province which will serve as a model of how poor interethnic communities can come together to address ecological challenges and increase their food and income security. Throughout the project, the youth are supported in practicing their learnings in their home communities and connected with an alumni peacebuilding network that shares experiences, learnings, and endorsement.  

The alumni peacebuilding network (NIPA) and relevant field staff conduct trips to interethnic communities across Cambodia to build relationships, share information about the project, and recruit potential youth peacebuilder candidates. There will be at least two trips to each targeted interethnic community. This will include trips conducted in coordination with implementing partner CRDT in Sambour district, Kratie province. The youth peacebuilder participants will be selected from a variety of ethnically diverse areas including Kandal, Kompong Chhnang, Kratie, Kompot, Mondulkiri, Kompong Cham, Phnom Penh, and border provinces.     

This project assumes that a holistic approach that addresses root causes of conflict while increasing social cohesion and conflict transformation capacity will be significantly more successful at preventing conflict than a singular approach. This project will equip communities with functional skills to address food and income scarcity and with conflict transformation skills to come together to respond to crises, rather than breaking apart.