CORDE :
Background
The Royal Kingdom of Cambodia is a Southeast Asian nation bordered by the Gulf of Thailand, between Vietnam, Thailand and Laos. Within its approximately 181 000 sq. kilometers, Cambodia has a population of about 13.1 million people. Cambodia is a country that has been ravaged by 3 decades of war and strife. In these years, its population witnessed atrocities which would go down in history as among the most horrific of the twentieth century—over 2 million displaced people died from execution or enforced hardships. 
During the Khmer Rouge rule, the educated and culturally talented were executed. Intelligence and talent was not seen as a virtue but as a threat. Books and all printed material were banned and subsequently destroyed. Generations grew up knowing nothing but a life of war, famine, death, disease, and depravation. Formal education was almost at a total standstill, millions were illiterate and uneducated. Although the government has tried to put in place a national education system, there are still a vast number of children in Cambodia who have no access to basic education.
Cambodian Organization for Research, Development and Education (CORDE)
It was against this backdrop of both an uncertain but hopeful future that a group of seven Cambodians determined to contribute to the development of their own community came together to form the Cambodian Organization for Research, Development, and Education (CORDE). In 1994 CORDE became a private, local non-profit and apolitical voluntary development organization dedicated to promoting social and economic transformation, upraising the quality of human life, and improving the wellbeing of individuals, families and communities.
CORDE aims to do this through provision of viable and sustainable programs. These programs are created for the sole purpose of enhancing individual’s capacities and capabilities, thereby increasing the level of participation in each community, resulting in empowerment at every level of society for a long-term and sustained impact. CORDE is registered under the Cambodian Ministry for Health and the Cambodian Ministry of Social Welfare and Community D
evelopment. In the recent effort of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports to draft a National Youth Policy, CORDE was invited as a partner and implementer of the Ministry’s program.
Most of CORDES initiatives were concentrated in the province of Battambang, in northwest Cambodia. Inspired volunteers gathered children from their villages to hold daily tutorial classes, each running for a minimum of two hours, with at least twenty students. More classes were opened as more volunteers came forward to teach the classes. These classes were held wherever places were available.
In 1995 there were two classes. By 1997, the number of classes increased to 35 with some 550 children participating. CORDE expanded classes to the province of Saang, just outside Phnom Penh. As the number of classes grew, and the number of students multiplied, CORDE expanded to even more areas of Cambodia and embarked on a systematic training program for its teachers. This was to ensure that the quality and content of their classes were constantly improving and measurable accountabilities were in place.
CORDE recently reflected and evaluated its development work of the last five years and held a series of workshops with its staff and collaborators to determine its future direction. The vision that emerged was of a decentralized program offering a complete educational package extending from children to university graduates and beyond that to lifelong learning, fully integrated with the institute process of its main collaborator, The Institute for Training and Development (ITD) and supporting the growth and transformation of communities in a coherent way. Under this vision CORDE expects to grow the number of their CORDE Centers of Learning (CCLs) from the current number of twelve to around forty by 2013, thereby serving a population of around 41,000 students.
CORDE Centers of Learning (CCL)
The CORDE teachers are trained to be a valuable human resource not only for the Community Education and Development (ComED) program, but also for the entire community in which they live. The teachers, mainly female, come from many diverse backgrounds ranging from public school teachers, to farmers, to high school students to homemakers. Volunteer teachers are given an allowance for transport, oil for lamps for classes, stationary for students and incidentals. The classes run daily for one to two hours with ten to twenty students. In places where there are no CCLs, CORDE classes continue to be held wherever possible; be it the homes of teachers, in the market place or under shady trees. The building of CORDE Centers of Learning enables CORDE to provide a safe and purpose-built facility in areas where the number of classes can support its use.
The purpose of the CCLs is fourfold:
- To provide an enhanced physical learning environment for the students
- To cater to the growing demand for informal and moral education in the villages
- To expand the literacy and moral empowerment course to include more levels for children, junior youth and youth.
- To offer a wider selection of courses beyond literacy and moral empowerment classes (environmental awareness, health education, peace education)
By the end of 2006, there were six CCLs throughout Cambodia serving 1,235 children and youth. One of these is in Poipet, near the Thai border, this area is known for using child labor. Children and youth are routinely taken across the border to earn money for their families; some are sold into slavery never to return to their families. Another CCL is located in Preah Vihear Province and contains many hill tribes and indigenous people and is one of the least developed regions of Cambodia with very little in the way of educational institutions. In 2007 and 2008, with the support of Mona Foundation, CORDE was able to serve 2000 children and youth. In 2009, the number of children and youth served by CORDE increased by almost 90% over the previous years to 3,827.