the 2h project

With over 80% of the population living in rural areas Farming for Futures provides employment opportunities and empowers an indigenous response to the challenge of poverty alleviation, by planting crops suitable to the Cambodian climate using local knowledge and expertise.

Supervisors manage day-to-day responsibilities including cultivation and planting, ongoing maintenance and harvest. Profi ts are then used to create small business loans. It’s now possible for people to benefit from the ownership of land that was previously only available to a privileged few.

Strong regional expansion and the national road development have ensured good capital growth, trade with neighboring countries and excellent market returns at harvest.

Safe Arrivals is a training program for Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) and aims to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity rates in areas where TBAs are the only help available.

Nearly 90% of Cambodia’s women are assisted in labour, delivery and the immediate postpartum period by a TBA. Most learn midwifery by observing other birth attendants - or by trial and error. Safe Arrivals acknowledges the vital role that TBAs play but also recognises the need for training.

The one day clinics present basic skills, new concepts and safe techniques. Transportation, meals, one day’s wage, training & teaching aids and resourcing of basic birthing kits are included for each TBA who attends.

Sight to Life - In 2004 2h became aware of the widespread prevalence of avoidable blindness amongst Cambodia’s poor. Cambodia has 160,000 cases of cataract blindness - of which 80-90% are treatable - with only a minimal number of qualified eye surgeons available.

Realising that eye surgery was either unaffordable, inaccessible or considered too dangerous by local villagers, Dr Ek Sarou (a Cambodian trained optometrist) set about establishing the Battambang Optical Clinic. Supported by his partnership with 2h, Sarou rented and refitted a suitable building, collected the necessary equipment and gathered a team of professionals dedicated to providing quality eye surgery to those who cannot afford it.

Currently 300 eye surgeries are being performed every month and the team are on target to clear the cataract backlog in Battambang.

Beyond Business - Inspired by life as a child in a Khmer Rouge labour camp, Piseth has worked with The 2h Project to establish a micro-finance organisation called Smile of World. Smile of World provides interest-free loans to help establish desperately poor Cambodians in their own small business.

One of the keys to the success of micro-finance or ‘banking to the poor’ is the recycling of loan dollars. In 6 to 12 months the loans are repaid and the money is ‘paid forward’ as another loan, so multiplying the value of each dollar in reducing poverty.

With close to a 100% pay back rate the investment is having a significant impact. The cost to establish a local business in Cambodia is a lot less than Australia – just $300 is all that is needed!

There are many more projects on the backburner, we need finance, resources and people power to get them off the ground. Get involved today.