Cambodia

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Case Study 1: Volunteerism promoting inclusive education and youth engagement in Cambodia

Volunteerism, therefore, has much to contribute by way of harnessing the power and participation of individuals and communities to empower those who are furthest behind and address some of the social exclusion that exists as a result of poverty, gender, disability, ethnicity and other causes of inequality. [...] the MOEYS, Cambodia, and the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) has launched three youth volunteering pilot programs, including: 1. Volunteering for community services 2. Volunteering for social entrepreneurship 3. Volunteering on school holidays [...] What underlines the services of young volunteers is the inclusive nature of volunteerism itself. Among the volunteers participating in the three pilot programs, almost half are women, and a lot of them originate from poor rural families. In addition to chances of skills strengthening, volunteerism provides equal opportunities for all young people to learn and grow their knowledge on community services. In this way, volunteerism has become the vehicle expanding inclusive education opportunities, enabling all young people to learn and exchange knowledge in a participatory approach. Witnessing the power of volunteerism in engaging youth as a part of development solutions, it is encouraging to learn that the Prime Minister has officially identified establishing a volunteering network at the grassroot level as one of the five strategic recommendations at the 2019 National Education Congress.

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Case Study 2: Volunteer lawyers

In order to ensure a wider access to social justice, the RGC in February 2019 ordered the establishment of volunteer group of lawyers to defend poor women, who cannot afford to pay for representation. The establishment of the new legal team would not use the national budget, but an initial funding of $500,000 will come from the Prime Minister’s personal budget and will cover living and food expenses, with additional money for lawyers on missions in rural areas. The women targeted to receive legal aid from the new team included poor women who were victims of land grabbing by powerful people, and underprivileged people who had been sued by powerful individuals. Volunteer doctors In line with and to support poverty reduction efforts, the RGC established Techo Voluntary Youth Doctor Association (TYDA) in 2012, and since then around 3,600 medical doctors and health practitioners have become volunteers. TYDA was established with three main purposes: (1) contributing with the national institutions, particularly Ministry of Health, Case Study 2: Lawyers and medical doctors for the poor with a view to provide public health services to people free of charge regardless of race, color, or political affiliation; (2) contributing with the RGC in order to reduce poverty through domiciliary health service provision activities to the poor, especially the poor who live in the rural areas; and (3) contributing to the human resources in health sector as well as give opportunities to the volunteer student doctor and youth in a bid to contribute to charity works in the society. TYDA provides health services to people without political discrimination. Since its establishment, 240,000 people have benefited from its free-of-charge health services. Because of its significance, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the National Social Security Fund and TYDA, so that the latter will provide treatment services free of charge to workers and people in Phnom Penh and provinces. TYDA provided diagnosis and treatment services including general diseases, oral diseases, minor-surgery, optometric diseases, heart diseases, echocardiography (ECG), hemorrhoid, gynecological diseases, fetal echo, blood test, thyroid, liver diseases, lung diseases, gastroenteritis, skin diseases, and other diseases.