SURVEY

Hi please help us out and fill out this quick survey. Thanks! :)

http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dDNxNm1OUDZLYlRfZ3B3b1JaTndxUkE6MQ

Why are we helping the Cambodians

“Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.”by Nelson Mandela.

Poverty is one of the major problems faced by the world today, and about 1.7 billion people around the world live in absolute poverty . It is also a cause of many other problems such as hunger, AIDS, malaria, etc. In fact, one person dies every three and half seconds due to hunger from poverty, amounting to 25,000 people every day . Furthermore, the most deadly characteristic of poverty is that it creates a vicious cycle for those who are trapped in it .

Only external aid can help them out of sustained poverty so it is our wish to do our part and provide an effective solution to help as many of these Cambodians as possible.

Problem statement

Between 9th and the 13th century, Cambodia, then known as the Khmer Empire, was one of the most powerful and wealthiest kingdoms in the region. And the temple of Angkor Wat of the early 12th century is perhaps the most renowned image of the ancient Buddhist/Hindu world. But the Cambodia of today is only well known for being continually plagued by poverty and historical grievances, and which is currently ranked 120 out of 190 countries according to nominal GDP. 4 This means that it is one of the poorest countries in the world , with 35% of its population mired in poverty .


Poverty in Cambodia is most widespread in the rural areas where, sadly, almost two-fifths have less than $0.44 USD a day . Cambodia is one of the hardest place to live in.

The unfortunate combination of poor health, low education levels and limited resources continues to hold many Cambodians in the shadow of prolonged poverty .
Up to this day, 36% of Cambodian children below 5 years of age are underweight , 35% of Cambodians do not have access to an improved water source and 18.5% of them will not live to see their 40th birthday .

Current solutions

Numerous individuals recognize the need to combat poverty here and have set up organizations to help deal with the situation.

Asian Development Bank

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is one such organization that helps its members (mostly developing countries) to reduce poverty and improve the quality of life of their people. For Cambodia, it helps by providing them with immense grants and loans to support for infrastructure and transport sector development . However, this has proved to be ineffective as even with 940 million dollars worth of aid from the ADB , Cambodia is still suffering severely from poverty. Thus more needs to be done to alleviate the situation in Cambodia.

Tabitha Foundation Singapore


Tabitha Foundation Singapore is yet another initiative. Set up in 2004 to help Cambodians in poverty, the foundation aims to aid Cambodians by arranging voluntary house-building teams to Cambodia, facilitate corporate sponsorship, developing a network of schools that support Tabitha Cambodia. It also sells Tabitha cottage industry products in Singapore in order to raise funds.
However, although the foundation has met with certain success, it is still lacking in some areas. Tabitha Foundation helps the Cambodians by building wells, the savings program, building houses and selling their cottage products. Although these programs have helped thousands , many more are still out of their reach . This is because the foundation uses a top-down approach to help the Cambodians, which is very labour and resource intensive, requiring funds that the foundation is simply unable to sustain for long terms.

Proposed solutions

Setting up a micro-financing system for rural Cambodia villages.

- The micro-financing system can be started with $200 which will be raised by our group.
- This fund is then given to a certain group of about five families through Tabitha Foundation.
- Each family then chips in, creating a pool of money for the group.
- The amount contributed by the villagers will be matched dollar for dollar by us as well as Tabitha Foundation.
- This amount of funds can then be used to set up farms, build houses, wells, and buy livestock such as chickens, pigs or others for families who need it the most.
- When these families start to profit from the earnings they received through the loans, they can replace the money withdrawn from the fund, so another family can utilise it.
- After all families have benefited from the fund, the villagers will have their money returned and the remaining money can be used to start another fund with a different group of families.


This project is potentially:

- Self-renewing
- Sustainable
- Potentially a significant help to Cambodians in poverty

Our group can help by:

- Raising awareness of Tabitha Foundation and poverty in Cambodia in school.
- Fundraising in school to obtain the money for starting the fund.
- Creating posters to raise awareness amongst students in schools about the poverty in Cambodia. (Possible location: School Canteen and water coolers)- Creating a blog which functions as both a website for information on the living conditions in Cambodia as well as the information on our projects’ efforts.
- Helps to serve as a log of our efforts as well as a database on the Cambodians.