Community Based Organizations

SSF assists poor and in-need communities to establish a strong, democratic and gender-balanced Community- based Organization with the capacity and voluntary spirit to plan, implement and monitor the development activities that are supported by the project, which will continue to operate long after the project phases out, and which will serve as a community organizing model for neighboring communities.

The following entities are determined the CBO that SSF is seeking to help establish:

• Village Banking: Provides very poor families with small loans to invest in their micro-enterprises, Village Banking empowers them to create their own jobs, raise their incomes, build assets, and increase their families’ well-being. Read More...

• Rice Bank Committees: A Rice Bank is a simple, but sturdy wooden construction housing a supply of rice. The village provides the labour, whilst SSF provides the materials and an initial supply of rice. Villagers borrow from this and then repay the rice when their next crop is harvested. SSF is intended to build five Rice Banks throughout Samrong Tong district of Kampong Speu province, but more are needed to enable poor communities to feed themselves all year.

• Animal Bank: A cow bank works by giving a poor family a cow to help them plough their fields and use for breeding. Once the cow has bred, the baby is returned to the bank so that another family can benefit In Cambodia, the market price for a cow is too much for many rice farmers who struggle to grow enough rice to feed their families. Owning a cow can make a huge difference - giving them enough food to eat and also preventing them having to work twice as hard planting rice by hand or give up a large part of their rice harvest to rent an animal.