Without support, children that grow up in underprivileged families will always have few options for creating a stable future for themselves.  Often parents are focused on day-to-day subsistence and, because of a lack of education, sufficient and healthy nutrition, access to the labor market and any kind of healthcare, can offer little practical support to their children.

The families have no room to think constructively about their future. It is a entrapping situation in which children are often used as a source of income for the family. This situation then becomes cyclical, as children grow up to raise their own children with equally few options for social mobility.

Our Approach

To create sustainable change within communities, a structured, holistic approach, with acknowledgment of specific situations, is crucial. It is essential to develop and nurture talent and capacity within the local communities.

We support projects that create long-term opportunities with these perspectives in mind. Our focus is education and development programs. This way, underprivileged children in Southeast Asia will be able to reach their personal potential and take their futures into their own hands. ECHO carefully selects these projects based on multiple criteria.

Our Impact

Damnok Toek is one of the few organizations in Cambodia that support children and young people with severe mental and physical disabilities. Damnok Toek hosts a center for children with disability, near Phnom Penh. The center provides children with residential and assisted-living care, physiotherapy and access to education, and to prepare all children for family reintegration (if possible). With the support from ECHO, Damnok Toek has been developing an outreach component, supporting children with disabilities at home and creating a supportive home environment together with the children’s families.

Children’s Action for Development (CAD) has been supporting and assisting vulnerable children and their parents in the province of Battambang (Cambodia), for over 12 years. There, families are conflicted between illegal migration to Thailand and surviving day by day. CAD provides a wide range of services, among which the supplementary education to over 360 children every day. CAD supports the public school system by improving their facilities, developing courses on sensitive societal topics, and building new school buildings.

In 2021 we expanded our support to a third organization, First Step Cambodia (FSC). As a local expert in child protection, FSC has a strong track record in tackling child sexual abuse and providing tailor-made services to child survivors of sexual abuse. Based on their experience, FSC provides training to Cambodian social workers and relevant government personnel in social work and child protection. Applying a gender lens, FSC raises awareness for boys as victims of abuse, as this is often ignored by Cambodian society.