As we come into 2025 I thought I’d write a quick overview of our main projects in Cambodia. There are also short term projects and collaborative work with peer organizations, but these are our main ongoing projects. In most countries around the world, Mennonite Central Committee works by accompanying local partners so I’ll outline our work by partner. I might do another post later on how and why we accompany partners.

Organization to Develop Our Villages (ODOV)

ODOV currently works with poor farmers spread across 90 villages in southern Prey Veng province. This is our largest project in Cambodia and it is supported by MCC’s account at the Canadian Foodgrains Bank. This project organizes poor farmers into Producer Groups and Savings Groups, which invests them in each other’s success and allows them to sell/purchase with more negotiating power. These groups are then brought together into larger Agricultural Cooperatives that provide steady income, supports, and services to it’s members. ODOV also trains farmers on sustainable agriculture (primarily rice, vegetable, chicken, and fish), Climate Change adaptation, community conflict resolution, food preparation and nutrition, personal business skills, and more equitable gender roles. ODOV has been incredibly successful at poverty alleviation and elevating women in leadership.

We are currently working to expand this project to Northern Prey Veng province, Tboung Khmum province, and Mondulkiri province.

Interview with Ratt Morn, a farmer

ODOV also operates a vocational apprenticeship program that connects at-risk Secondary School drop-outs with master craftspeople who they apprentice under. Many young people leave the countryside to engage in high-risk migrant labor. This often puts them in dangerous situations and weakens communities in the countryside. This project seeks to strengthen rural communities by letting young adults have a livelihoods that enables them to chose to stay and to contribute to their community. It also includes basic business operation training and start-up funding so that they can open their own businesses in the community. Traditionally this program focused on sewing and engine repair, but in recent years has expanded to new vocations like hair dressing, air conditioner repair, and cell phone repair.

Ren Reasey’s mobile phone repair shop

Cambodian Rural Development Team (CRDT)

CRDT currently works with poor farmers spread across 10 interethnic villages in remote Kratie province. Similar to ODOV, this project also organizes poor farmers into Producer Groups and Savings Groups, which invests them in each other’s success and allows them to sell/purchase with more negotiating power. These groups are then brought together into larger Agricultural Cooperatives that provide steady income, supports, and services to it’s members. CRDT also trains farmers on sustainable agriculture (primarily rice, vegetable, chicken, and fish), Climate Change adaptation, personal business skills, and more equitable gender roles. CRDT is a partner of the World Wildlife Fund and Engineers without Borders, they have been especially successful at environmentally sustainable development, introducing green technology, and establishing new sustainable livelihoods like ecotourism. CRDT works in close proximity to many endangered species, including the Irrawaddy river dolphin, and has strong conservation practices including organic farming and natural pest control.

Visiting Sros’ Farm Two Months Apart

The current MCC project was CRDT’s first to focus exclusively on poor farmers and we organized peer-to-peer learning with ODOV. Our hope is to continue to build this relationship and engage both partners in learning each other’s strengths.

Women Peace Makers (WPM)

Cambodia has a history of riots and other violence targeting ethnic minorities. This includes the 2003 anti-Thai riots and the 2014 anti-Vietnamese riots. In the 2010s, MCC supported Women Peace Makers to develop an empathy based peacebuilding approach rooted in the Southeast Asian context. Women Peace Makers now recruits young adults from interethnic communities across Cambodia, trains them on empathic based peacebuilding, and supports them as active peacebuilders in their home communities. This comes from research showing that young adults are the most likely to accept narrative change and an acknowledgment that the most sustainable/effective strategy is to support/empower changemakers on the community level.

Meng Srean’s Interethnic Peacebuilding Journey

In the latest phase of the project Women Peace Makers has also begun working in Secondary Schools in Prey Veng province. They are introducing Peer Mediation and Conflict Transformation. This synergizes with our Primary School Peace Club project whose students graduate into these Secondary Schools where Women Peace Makers is working.

Peace Bridges Organization (PBO)

MCC supports Peace Bridges Organization in empowering women from indigenous ethnic minority groups in remote forested areas of Cambodia. These women become community leaders and changemakers who engage in environmental peacebuilding, conflict transformation, and gender based peacebuilding. This also includes activities like tree planting and fish releases that engage the full community in environmental protection and build points of connections between vulnerable marginalized groups and mainstream groups.

Khmer Vulnerability Aid Organization (KVAO)

KVAO provides supports to returnees to Cambodia from the United States. These returnees were refugees who travelled to the United States as children, most under the age of three, and who grew up there. These individuals had legal resident status in the United States but were not citizens and could be deported. Many of them were unaware of this. Most – but not all – of the returnees have a criminal record. KVAO works closely with the Cambodian and US governments to receive the returnees, meeting them on arrival at the airport and providing them with a variety of supports including temporary housing, connections with extended family (who they often don’t know) in Cambodia, documentation assistance, employment support, cultural orientation, language study, basic medical care, conflict reduction and mediation, and – when needed – long term support.

The program has been incredibly successful with a high-employment rate and a recidivism rate of 7.5% which, compared to rehabilitation programs in the US, is unheard of.

Prey Veng Provincial Department of Education (DoE)

MCC works with the Prey Veng Provincial Department of Education to run Peace Clubs in Rural Primary Schools during the Life Skills class, provides Teachers with coaching on positive classroom management, and works with the community to strengthen child protection and school support.

Chan Trea’s Class on Anger Management

Global Services Learning (GSL)

Cambodia hosts one of the largest Global Services Learning programs in the world. Now that the pandemic is behind us we routinely host 8 SALT/YAMEN participants and a cohort of 8 Seek participants.

• SALT/YAMEN is an 11-month exchange program where young adult Christians travel to a foreign country where they serve at a local church/organization while living with a local host family and attending a local church.
  • Placements include some of unfunded partners like Cambodia’s largest Christian radio station, a children’s home in Prey Veng province, a youth outreach center for the urban poor, and an organization strengthening local church leaders and conducting ecumenical peacebuilding.
• Seek is a 6-month discipleship program focused on cultivating a personal sense of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
• We also send Cambodian IVEP/YAMEN participants out to countries around the world.
• Periodically, we host Learning Tours where participants visit MCC projects and have immersive exposure to our work.

There’s a transformative power in leaving one’s homeland to serve in the name of Christ as a foreigner in a foreign land.

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For security reasons we can’t share this openly about our work in Myanmar but good work is being done there on the community level through MCC supported peacebuilding and humanitarian assistance programs.