Cambodia

4.2.1. Country Profile

In 1978 Vietnamese invasion drove the Khmer Rouge into the countryside, began a 10-year Vietnamese occupation, and touched off almost 13 10-years of civil war. This civil war has caused bad economic environment and let Cambodia were devastated in the past decades. This damage for culture is totally and influence generations. Therefore, Cambodia it is easier to catch the eyes of foreign aider than other countries in South-East Asia. Nowadays there are lots

40

of NGOs or social enterprises in Cambodia working for reducing poverty mainly. According to the Corporation Committee for Cambodia (CCC) in 2013 there were about 3500 registered NGOs in Cambodia. Admittedly, fewer than half of these NGOs are currently active, but that is still about one active NGO for every 10,000 Cambodians. In fact, it still has the second highest number of NGOs per capita in the world, after only Rwanda. Currently, Cambodia is a place full of organizations and individuals running innovative businesses that create positive social impact. Social Enterprise in Cambodia is not only a free-standing, independent initiative dedicated to promoting social entrepreneurship in the Kingdom, but also a place for established social enterprises to connect and grow.

4.2.2. Case Introduction

4.2.2.1. Concert

As mentioned above, because there were several wars occurred since 1970s, Cambodia became one of the world's poorest nations. This means these wars not only made Cambodia millions of people dead, but also devastated their culture and infrastructure. So poverty in Cambodia is an overwhelmingly phenomenon especially in rural areas. Over 93% of the country’s total number of poor live in rural areas, 6.2% live in other urban areas, with a tiny percentage in urban Phnom Penh. This situation causes many NPOs to devote themselves to deal with the harsh reality which this country is confronting. According to estimates, there are more than 3500 registered NPO in Cambodia now. Although there are so many NGOs here, the founder of Concert noticed that there was still a need was not fulfilled, which is there are millions of tourists visit Cambodia per year and they see different reality from their hometown in this country, most of them are usually willing to help to change this situation when they here.

41

However, they do not know how to help or what things they can do. On the other side, these NPOs also have problem on the issue like resource-gaining or volunteer recruit. So Concert has tried to connect this gap offers the service which is to verify if an enterprise is actually doing the social mission they claim, and set up a platform that tourist can know how they can help accordance with their expertise. In addition, these NPOs or organizations also can get resource they exactly need.

In 2008, Concert was initiated officially by Michael Horton for helping people to help in Siem Reap, especially for tourists. Its aim is to reduce poverty by visitors who want to give their support for Cambodia. And people realize this goal by purchasing the service or products from local businesses, such like hotels, restaurants, bars, shops, tour operators, etc. When tourist visit in Siem Reap they could go to Concert’s information center in Sister Srey Café, New Leaf Book Café, Haven training restaurant and Rogue for understanding how they can contribute their expertise on which projects. Or they can go to the places or purchase service or products recommended there, because these organizations or enterprises with social mission have been verified by Concert. By this way, even the tourist who would only stay for short time can know how they can support for change.

Meanwhile, these NPOSs can let Concert know which expertise they may need, and resource brought from tourist can be screened out primarily by tourist contact with Concert’s centre. Besides, for NPOs despite of they all have their own website, but become a member of Concert and showed on their web is able to let customer know they actually are trying to achieve their social mission. However, the revenue Concert create now is only sufficient for native staffs, and according to interviewee the revenue now is about 6,000~7,000 USD per year.

So they are planning to develop the service to help organizations or enterprises marketing skill and hope this service can contribute more income.

42

4.2.2.2. Angkor Butterfly Centre

Angkor Butterfly Centre was built on the outskirts of Siem Reap and will double as a poverty alleviation project with rural families trained to breed butterflies and harvest pupae.

This privately funded centre is an offshoot of a similar venture in Tanzania, the Zanzibar Butterfly Centre, which opened to the public in January 2008. As for Angkor Butterfly Centre, it is located in Sanday village about 25 kilometers from Siem Reap, and run by some former staffs from Zanzibar and is headed by director Ben Hayes, a founder of the Zanzibar centre.

There were several reasons why Siem Reap was chosen for another butterfly centre, including the tourism potential, communities to work with and the richness of butterfly fauna.

The revenue for the centre in Siem Reap is generated mainly by tourism admissions, but they are applying a permit for exporting butterflies and butterfly pupae to collectors, zoos and other centres mainly in Europe and the United States. If the government approves that, Angkor Butterfly Centre could generate more income. The butterfly fauna of Cambodia is not as well-studied as that of Thailand and Vietnam, but it is very high in diversity. Besides, for the project they will probably deal with 20 to 30 species which are local to the Siem Reap region.

Angkor Butterfly Centre teach the farmers how to breed butterfly, and these farmers also receive all relevant training regarding food plants and butterfly ecology. Then the initial females will be caught in the wild, later the farmers keep some of the pupae in the cage. Finally, they raise the caterpillars and sell them to our centre. By this way, there are 15 farmers approximately that can earn extra 150USD around per month. And the salary of the 13 staffs who work in this centre is also come from this process.

43

4.2.2.3. AngkorWall

AngkorWall is a social enterprise that offering accommodation service in Siem Reap, Cambodia. It was established in 2011 and according to the original idea it was prepared as a cheaper accommodation choice for volunteers who came to Cambodia from Taiwan. Now AngkorWall as a guesthouse has 3 places (AngkorWall CaCa, GaGa, HoHo) for people who wants to stay in Siem Reap. As a social enterprise AngkorWall not only supports to promote the living standard of children, but also is dedicated to become a resource hub for the children in rural Cambodia. For this mission most of the income generated from accommodation service is reinvested to its goal. In addition to accommodation service they also help tourist to arrange tour for attraction and transportation for increasing revenue.

According to Hank Hsu, founder of AngkorWall, its social mission almost cost all profit for the work about children in the rural area, sometimes it even needs to use his own money on different kinds of projects. In short, all profit generated from guesthouse flows to these social missions. Besides, as mentioned above their place also has a function to distribute and intermediate resource. For distribution, the goods and materials from Taiwan carried by tourist can be stored in AngkorWall and waiting for distribution. If there is any resource insufficient they also can issue related news to social media in Taiwan for raising. As for intermediary, they intermediate the volunteer from Taiwan to the NPOs needy and offer the consultancy service for the status of NPO there. But because Hank has been devoted himself on these projects as more as possible, sometimes their customers are not satisfied with the service of AngkorWall, such like sometimes the problem occurred cannot be solve immediately.

Like lots of NPOs or social enterprises emerging there, AngkorWall also confronts lots of problem since beginning. There are some enterprises or organizations, includes AngkorWall, have myth on ‘territory issue’, it means every organization here possess different vision for the

44

people’s future here. So when they enter a village and found other organizations there already, some of them would ask other organizations to leave. Because they think their solution is better and they need to achieve their mission for gaining resource donated. Another issue is human resource, Hank has been there for a long while and he has saw many people came to there for helping people because of their kindness, include many Taiwanese. But there were also many people left because they do not understand what does Cambodian people actually need.

Because in practice Cambodia is a very poor country, their people tend to not say no for any foreign aid, even the resource they already have.