The PACE Project (Poverty Alleviation Through Community Empowerment)

The PACE project is a community development program that was implemented in the isolated village of Veal Thom, in Treng Tra Yeung District in the Kampong Speu Province of Cambodia. This program, managed by the World Rehabilitation Fund (WRF), which is headquartered in New York City was instituted in 2003 in cooperation with the McMahan Center-Abilities Activists and extended in June, 2006 as an expansion project to other communities in Kampong Speu Province to replicate the PACE project’s successful outcomes.

The Veal Thom community is made up of approximately 1010 people that represent 227 families. Close to 100% of these families have a member who is a landmine survivor.

The twenty-year old civil war in Cambodia formally ended in 1991, however, the recovery facing the country is tremendous. It has been fairly well established that Cambodia has the highest percentage of landmine-injured persons in the world, with an estimated 40,000 Cambodians having suffered amputations as a result of this indiscriminate weapon since 1979.

In Cambodia, as in many other countries, people with disabilities fare far worse than the general population. People with disabilities have not had equal access to education, training and employment and this constant lack of opportunity has been compounded so as to alienate individuals from full community participation. While many workers with disabilities have considerable skills, many have not had the opportunity to develop their potential. People with disabilities are frequently excluded from rural income generation programs or employment services due to negative attitudes and other barriers.

The PACE project utilized the Success Case Replication (SCR) methodology that was field tested in eight Asian countries by United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and then adopted by the International Labor Organization (ILO) in a program in Cambodia to assist people with disabilities of which the World Rehabilitation Fund was a collaborating partner. SCR is a form of informal apprenticeship and peer training which offers an alternative option to high-cost formal training for people with disabilities.

Few programs exist in Cambodia to address the wide-ranging needs of individuals with disabilities with the goal of creating economic independence. With the support of the McMahan Center-Abilities Activists, the World Rehabilitation Fund expanded the use of its integrated approach to address long-term issues of poverty alleviation among landmine survivors and others with disabilities. PACE exemplifies the power of individuals to better their own lives when given the means and opportunities to do so. It also provides a model for other communities that could adapt the methodology to best fit their local needs.

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To view the documentary Bare Hands and Wooden Limbs: Healing, Recovery and, Reconciliation in Cambodia visit www.barehandswoodenlimbs.com. The documentary film is about former Khmer Rouge Commander Touj Souerly, and Chhem Sip, a Khmer-American who fled Cambodia after years of forced labor under the Khmer Rouge, and their unique collaboration to improve the lives of a village of landmine survivors.