Causes: Education, Environment, Forest Conservation, Homeless & Housing, Homeless Centers, Human Services, International, International Development, Secondary & High Schools

Mission: SITUATION: The ethnic minority Montagnard hill tribes are the original inhabitants of southeast Indochina. They sustained their tropical forest agroecosystem since 200 BC by living in harmony with nature. Due to shrinking earthly resources, the outside world is closing in on them and taking their timber, communal lands, and destroying what they''ve protected for subsequent generations since the beginning of time. There are 3.5 million acres of forests and jungle in Mondolkiri Province, Cambodia targeted by Chinese, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Thai, and other outside interests in collusion with corrupt Cambodian officials. 95% of these Montagnards are illiterate, they''re highly marginalized by the Cambodian Gov, and although the poorest people in Southeast Asia, they don''t want handouts and welfare. All they want is an educated leadership to peacefully ensure protection of their resources while integrating equitably in the global economy. MISSION: Mitigate global climate change by providing the indigenous ethnic minority Montagnard highlanders of Cambodia with an educated leadership to stop the destruction of their tropical forest agroecosystem by predatory development. Create the educated leadership from amongst their homeless child population. It will consist of 30 college graduates and 1,200 secondary school graduates providing a ratio of one to every five families and averaging 12 per village, cumulatively amounting to 4% of the rural Mondolkiri Province population. Provide graduates with further training in advocacy, human/gender rights, governance, environmental and cultural preservation, land rights, public health, and teachers ed. Employ 171 graduates in a village development and education program. Establish a community based organization for the balance of the educated leadership to engage in advocacy, pro poor market development, and to reduce illiteracy and improve public health.

Programs: There's no other program like this in the world. See Paupers To Champions link at www. cambodiacorps. org. We have 130 secondary school students in our child's shelter on the northeast frontier. This aspect of our program needs to expand rapidly. Twenty shelter graduates attend universities and reside in our Indigenous Student Center in Phnom Penh. These graduates will provide the upper tier of the educated leadership for the Montagnards of Mondolkiri Province.