Women Development Association

The Women Development Association (WDA) in Cambodia provides services for family planning, HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention education, and helps to enroll poverty stricken youth in school.

WDA Programs

• WDA's Peace Building for Youth is a program to help combat the increasing street violence in their communities. WDA trains youth leaders to educate their communities about the dangers of street violence and criminal activity, and guides them to safer alternatives.

• Classes for youth working in Phnom Penh's garment factories. Class include: life skills, family planning, HIV/AIDS and STD prevention courses, and reproductive health.

• Microcredit programs for poor woman to prevent child domestic work, preschool classes that help to integrate poor children into public primary schools, vocational training for older youth and adults.

Why the need?

Cambodia is one of the world’s poorest nations. Its economy and political life are struggling to recover from a civil war that lasted two decades. Within the communities of rural migrants and refugees that populate Kandal Province, basic education and job opportunities are very limited.

Garment factories around the capital offer some employment, but mostly only for girls and women. Boys and young men without schooling have few prospects. In their frustration, many turn to gang activity, fighting, substance abuse, gambling, crime, and gender violence.

How Team Efforts Translate to Impact

All funds raised will support WDA's Peace Building Program. Since this program began, fewer youth are joining gangs and participating in criminal violence.

How WDA Creates Sustainable Global Change?

WDA creates sustainable change in the community through reproductive health education and women’s credit programs. By focusing attention on vulnerable boys, who are a danger to themselves and the community, WDA is constructing a safer and more fertile environment for the local society to flourish.