VISION
The Morodok organization envisions peaceful rural communities in Cambodia where people have equal rights and opportunity to manage and utilize natural resources in a sustainable fashion for the improvement of their quality of life.
MISSION
To improve living conditions, strengthen solidarity and create ownership for the poor people in the coastal communities of Cambodia through building their capacity, supporting their initiatives and facilitating dialogue between relevant actors.
OBJECTIVE
To promote community empowerment toward socio – economic development through enhancing capacity of community groups (CBO and Livelihood groups) to participate in local democratization and good governance processes.
VALUES
The MORODOK organization believes:
- Transparency and accountability create trust amongst staff and stakeholders and lead to strong organizational management.
- Capacity development enables organizations and communities to respond to the changing needs and sustainability.
- Improving communities’ livelihoods results from good collaboration between relevant actors.
- Ownership encourages responsibility and leads to effectiveness and efficiency of performance.
- Participation, initiative and gender equity enable us to mobilize all possible resources for sustainable development.
HISTORY
Morodok is a local NGO working with rural communities around Kampong Som Bay, Cambodia. It was previously a program of an international NGO, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). AFSC’s Integrated Sustainable Livelihoods Program (ISLP), commenced its work in Sre Ambel district, Koh Kong, in September 1997. At that time, the area was remote and insecure. The AFSC/ISLP originally provided a full range of services, including agriculture, irrigation, credit, health and educational programs. However, in 2001, the program narrowed its focus to concentrate on helping communities manage and protect their natural resources and improve their livelihood options.
By 2003, the ISLP was completely staffed by Cambodians; and in 2004, the ISLP adopted financial monitoring tools to enable staff to manage their own budget. In order to prepare for full localization, in 2008, AFSC organized a number of internal workshops and meetings for the ISLP staff to explore ideas on how to become a local organization. As a consequence, a three-year localization plan was prepared. Staff developed their future vision and mission, and began a transition process in which the program developed its identity, policies, By-Laws, governance structures, and organizational capacity. In April 2011, the ISLP program team registered as a local NGO under the name “Morodok.”
AFSC handed over the program to Morodok as of 1 October 2011. A Handover Ceremony was held in Sre Ambel on 5th October 2011. Since then, Morodok continues to work in the region, encouraging community groups to assert their rights over the use of natural resources and livelihood improvement. Morodok staff work closely with leaders of community groups, helping them to promote community ownership in social enterprise development and claiming their community rights for sustainable natural resource management. Morodok continues to bring community groups together with local government officials, technical officers and development partners to prepare applications and proposals, which are submitted to high-level government institutions to receive official rights to resource tenure, helping create ownership for coastal communities in the Kampong Som Bay region of Cambodia.