ICSO has been established on 1st July 2006 initiated and established a group of Governance Board members and key CFI project staff and IP elders to build up the ICSO By-Law. In the process of this localization the Governance Board has recruited a National Program Coordinator to support for this process but now accomplished to be Executive Director Position of the year 2008.
ICSO has registered with the Royal Government of Kingdom of Cambodia on 13 July 2006, Certification #840 Sor Chor Nor of the Ministry of Interior and starting to continue it operation in Ratanakiri province, Cambodia on 01st January 2007 in order to provide the further services support the indigenous communities through its 2007-2009 Strategic Plan.
For the starting ICSO 2007 we thought that the traditional indigenous communities are organized at the scale of villages, as the village is the main social, economical and jurisdictional structure. However, the challenges that indigenous communities are now facing can seldom be solved at such level. This new context forces indigenous communities to establish links and networks in order to extend their capacity for solidarity, advocacy and rights defense. Moreover, confrontation with the external world requires new knowledge, new techniques and capacities that are not available at village level. Networking is a decisive step for indigenous communities at that stage.
In general, ICSO implementation in the whole calendar year of 2007-2009 resulted in a great deal of grassroots activities of community organizing and building networks among the communities, local authorities, NGOs and other development organizations inside and outside of Cambodia in order to Indigenous Communities have knowledge, capacity, solidarity and a sense of ownership and are using that capacity to manage their natural resources, culture and traditions and to improve their socio-economic situation with effectiveness and sustainability. Thus ICSO is to supporting, Strengthening, and Improving the capacity of indigenous community organizations and groups to participate in the protection of the rights and in the management of natural, cultural and traditional resources to empower the indigenous communities/groups on right based approach through community organizing and networking in 4 districts of Ratanakiri with the following strategies.
- Indigenous peoples in 4 districts of Ratanakiri have selected representatives at village, and commune level and these people are coordinating at district level for representing community views and promoting sustainable natural resource management.
- Members of community networks in 4 target districts have community organizing, management, leaderships and training skills necessary for community organizing in their own villages and communes.
- Community representatives in 4 target districts are networking outside the province to increase community access to skills and experiences relevant to civil society building.
- Indigenous peoples have an indigenous media service that promotes information flows between communities, and to outside. This service is strong and overcoming language and distance barriers.
- Indigenous communities in 10 villages have undertaken community organizing directly supported by ICSO and have become legally recognized (so that they can own land communally).
- There has been an analysis of the needs of indigenous communities and their institutions in Cambodia.
- ICSO has become a strong local NGO capable of leading the NGO community working with indigenous peoples.
- Local NGOs working with indigenous people are provided the management support they require in order to provide quality support to indigenous peoples.
- The awareness of the need for specific program for indigenous people’s development is strong in government, donors and NGO’s.
Therefore, ICSO has been made concrete intervention through the following project:
- To Support the Community Natural Resource Management
- To Support the Community Organizing Training
- To Support the Community Media Training
- To Support the Indigenous Women Empowerment
- To Support Village Organizing
- To Support the Capacity Building for Indigenous Representatives
- To Support Institutional and Staff Capacity Development, with concept of integrated the
Livelihood Program for Enhancement the IP Economic and Social Development Structure in within IP working groups.
