Chikara Cambodia’s five projects

Chikara Cambodia works in Prasat Bakong, a poor area of the Cambodian province of Siem Reap. We run a number of projects here under the heading: ‘Educate for a Cleaner World’. We do this along with our young people, our local partners and volunteers, and often with interns from the Netherlands. We all work on making Cambodia more sustainable.

Project 1

Scholarships for disadvantaged youth

A sustainable Cambodia requires well-educated young leaders. This is why we support talented young people living in disadvantaged circumstances in Cambodia to study or receive vocational training. They receive a grant from us and counselling while studying. They are also given training in the areas of the environment, leadership, sales & marketing, English and other professional skills. They also build work experience in our environmental projects. They thus become tomorrow’s ‘environmental leaders’.

Careful selection

The young people we support go through a careful selection process. We do this with Prasat Bakong High School. The process is as follows.

The secondary school management makes a first selection of the candidates according to various criteria including their potential, motivation and affinity with the environment. The most important criterion is that someone has no or too little money to be able to study.
The candidates then go through a four-to-six-month assessment in which they work with our environmental projects.
They have meetings with the board members and the Chikara Cambodia young people. The board members also visit their families.
After that, the board members and the Chikara young people jointly decide if a candidate receives a grant. The candidates sign an agreement outlining the mutual expectations.

Our young people

Do you also want to support a young Cambodian?

Since 2019 Chikara Cambodia has supported 20 young people. Nine of them have now earned their diplomas and have found good jobs. They will continue working with our environmental projects as alumni. We hope that many more young people will follow. You can help by giving a donation to our study fund.

environmental hygiene workshops elementary schools

Project 2

Environmental and hygiene workshops in primary schools

One of the environmental challenges Cambodia faces is the large amount of plastic waste littering streets and natural areas. To help reduce this growing waste problem, greater environmental awareness among the population is needed. That is why the Chikara youth organize monthly workshops at 40 primary schools.
These interactive workshops focus on the importance of a clean environment, plastic recycling, and hygiene. Our self-developed Workshop Guide serves as the foundation for these sessions.

During the workshops, the young people distribute ecological soaps, which they helped produce themselves. They also encourage students to keep their surroundings clean and to collect and hand in plastic waste. Thanks in part to playful teaching methods – including puppet shows – the workshops are very well received.

Project 3

Soap in return for plastic waste

We want the 40 schools to continue being environmentally active after the workshops and will regularly give them soap. This is why we have the ‘Soap in return for plastic waste’ project. The idea behind it is simple and effective. We arrange with the schools that the children actively collect plastic waste. We collect this waste once a month. In exchange, the school receives balls of soap that we mount on the sinks. We have that plastic recycled and turned into learning materials and other products for the schools. This closes the plastic loop.

Fruitful partnership
We work with the Eco-Soap Bank (ESB), a local non-profit organisation, in this project. Together with them, we produce soap for the schools, which often do not have the financial means to pay for it themselves. We also collaborate with Panha Sabay and Gomi Recycle, social enterprises that recycle the collected plastic into (educational) materials for schools. We show the teachers how to use these materials in the ‘Teach the Teacher’ training.

Help us increase our impact
Not only do we reach the primary school children in our workshops and the soap project, we also reach their families and communities. The children tell others about this and set a good example through clearing up rubbish. This means that we have raised awareness among about 40,000 people in Cambodia about the importance of a clean environment. Will you help us reach even more people in Cambodia?

Soap in return for plastic waste Donate to our environmental projects

Soap in return for plastic waste take action

Project 4

Happy Clean Cambodia

Apart from the environmental workshops by the Chikara young people, we started a new education project in 2025: Happy Clean Cambodia. Through this project we hope to embed environmental education more deeply in primary education in Prasat Bakong. To do this we are using the teaching methods of Happy Green World (HGW), a Dutch organisation that works for environmental education all over the world. Our goal is for all the primary schools in Prasat Bakong to work with this methodology.

To join, the schools sign an agreement with Chikara Cambodia. This commits them to systematically use the methodology. In return, they get lesson books, a manual, environmental games and one year’s worth of ‘coaching on the job’ by our local project leaders. These project leaders show them how they can use the methodology and share feedback with them and coach them. If this goes well, the school will be awarded a certificate at the end of the year for giving good environmental education.

Donate a lesson package

All the primary schools in the region would like to join this project. But they cannot cover the costs – € 250 per school – themselves. We have found funding for some of the schools. Will you help the other schools to join? Then donate € 250 for a lesson package and one year’s worth of ‘coaching on the job’ by our local project leaders.

Our goal is to establish long-term collaboration around the ‘Soap in return for plastic waste’ and ‘Happy Clean Cambodia’ projects for all 40 primary schools in Prasat Bakong. We have already formalised this collaboration with some schools. We want to further scale this up in the next few years.

Project 5

Chikara Innovation Centre

In order to do our work well, we had the ‘Chikara Innovation Centre for a cleaner world’ built in 2024.
This is a sustainable building made of bamboo. Here:

our young people meet each other, get English lessons and take other courses;
our young people prepare the environmental workshops and develop new projects;
we welcome people from the surrounding communities to share knowledge, give workshops, and demonstrate how to apply simple, sustainable innovations;
we work with our local partners and the communities to work out ideas on sustainability and in so doing strengthen the communities.

The building is in Siem Reap, on the grounds of our partner Trailblazer Cambodia Organization (TCO). This makes it even easier to work with them. A local architect and contractor designed and built the building, and interns from the Windesheim University of Applied Sciences helped in the design and construction process. We are very proud of our new accommodation. You are very welcome here!