Our Vision

Our vision is to rescue Cambodia from the legacy of landmines and to help the families of mine victims heal themselves by becoming more self-sustainable and more connected to their customary ways of life.

Thousands of Cambodians have been injured, maimed and killed by landmines, remnants of past wars that offer stark reminders of the ongoing suffering that continues to plague the country.

However, human casualties account for only a fraction of the cost of this curse of modern warfare. Landmines perpetuate enormous economic and social suffering, as arable farmlands become acres of hazardous minefields, crippling societies that normally function as networks of many diverse local economies. Minefields limit access to the forests and water that are principal sources of Cambodian prosperity, and restrict interior travel that once made rural Cambodia socially vibrant and economically self-sufficient.

Victims of landmines and their families must spend all their money on medical expenses, and can’t afford to feed themselves. In the past, a prosperous Cambodia regularly fed its neighboring countries, producing hundreds of thousands of tons of rice and other crops for export. However, now Cambodians are unable to produce enough crops to feed themselves, and much of the population is forced to work in abysmal conditions and plead for food to survive.

International aid organizations have primarily focused on the visible suffering of landmine victims. Aid organizations often encourage families of mine victims to join the sweatshop culture that is widespread in developing countries, or they only finance and organize the production of overpriced trinkets targeting the tourism market. However, this type of assistance fails to address the source of the upheaval in Cambodian society: the disintegration of its families and communities.

Through the Rescue Cambodia project, AVCLM is proposing a village-based approach to assisting Cambodians, one that is being developed through direct discussions with the families of mine victims.

Rescue Cambodia envisions a traditional Cambodian village as a healing and organizing framework for rebuilding villages and rural Cambodian society. The project’s rescue tasks start by establishing food self-sufficiency in each village and end by rebuilding shared community resources such as clinics and schools. Each participating Cambodian village will be able to follow this approach to restore itself to health and vitality, and each successful village becomes a valuable source of ideas and energy for neighboring villages.

This approach will not only help the direct victims of landmines but also their families and their communities by putting rural Cambodians on the road to self-sufficiency. This approach will ensure communal health and prosperity by taking advantage of the networks of mutual support that are well-established in Cambodian society.

Rescue Cambodia reworks techniques that have already proven effective in Cambodia and other parts of the world that struggle with the combined impacts of globalization, poverty and war. Each rescue task has its own independent and specific goal, and addresses a specific area of need—such as medicine, food production or water. Therefore, each rescue task can be financed separately.

AVCLM’s first step will be to set in motion the process of rescuing a village and providing basic nutrition for 435 landmine victims. After the first year, these families can take the first step towards self-sustainability in food production, while the other rescue tasks will be accomplished as more funding becomes available.

The minimum ongoing annual cost of providing a village of 435 people with rice seed and basic nutritional needs is about $127,000 minus whatever food the village is able to produce and harvest independently. As each village is rescued, the knowledge gained along the way will make the process more streamlined and efficient in future years. It should also help develop networks of villages that can mutually benefit each other. As these networks strengthen over time, AVCLM believes that villages will gradually become less dependent on assistance from Rescue Cambodia