Learn how Trailblazer Foundation supports the development of rural communities in Cambodia through our health, food security, education, and economic development programs: developing ripples of sustainability through community water projects.

1. Trailblazer Foundation is developing ripples of sustainability
through community water projects.

2. Our community development work takes place
in Cambodia’s Siem Reap Province.

3. We work with poor, rural communities
in the shadow of Angkor Wat,
the largest religious monument in the world.

4. During the past eleven years,
Trailblazer Foundation has supported
more than fifty villages in the province..

5. The great irony about life in Siem Reap Province
is that, while almost two million tourists visit
Angkor Wat each year, very little of that economic influx
makes its way to the nearby villages.

6. In fact, Trailblazer Foundation got its name because
it was blazing a trail as the first non-government organization to
work with these villages.

7. Our first
project,
at the start of
2005, was
building
a primary
school in the
village of Sras.

8. However, as co-founder Chris
Coats has explained...
“We began with a school
project, but quickly learned
that water was the first
priority. A person must have
access to clean, potable
water to improve health and
sanitation. People must also
have a water resource for
growing their crops, livestock,
and fish—the source of their
food and commerce.”

9. Eleven years later,
Trailblazer remains focused on improving
health, food security, education,
and economic development
in rural Cambodia,
in ways that are self-sustaining
by the individuals and communities we serve.

10. The Buddha once said that “Without health, life is not
life; it is only a state of languor and suffering.” This
truth explains why Trailblazer Foundation’s first priority
is the health of our partner communities.
Health Program

11. In Cambodia’s Siem Reap province, water-borne diseases
are the greatest threat to health. Trailblazer’s Health
program initially focuses on providing clean water to
families and villages.

12. This includes digging wells
to access water,
and constructing bio-sand
filters to purify it.

13. We also work with our partner
villages to build latrines,
as part of our commitment
to a worldwide health strategy
known as WASH (Water,
Sanitation,
and Hygiene).

14. Finally, as part of our Health program, we reduce
diseases associated with insect bites and hook worms,
by distributing mosquito netting for a family’s beds,
and flip flops for their feet.

15. Along with having clean
water and reducing
diseases, food security is
one of the highest
priorities
for any human.
Trailblazer Foundation
works with our villages
to provide access to
abundant water,
as well as trainings
in growing abundant and
healthy crops.
Food Security Program

16. First, we build wells
that villagers can use
for their agricultural
pursuits.
Without a nearby
well, most villagers
need to transport
water long distances
for their crops.

17. Our goal is to establish a
well for every
three to five families in
these rural villages.
A well gives villagers the
ability to irrigate gardens
or create
fish ponds,
thereby improving their
own food supply.

18. Next, Trailblazer trains villagers
on best agricultural and
aquaculture practices,
knowledge we gain from
our own test plots, where
we research how to grow which
crops for the best yield.

19. One way to break the cycle of poverty is
to give children the opportunity to go to school.
Building new schools is one of
Trailblazer Foundation’s top priorities.
Education Program

20. Once completed, Trailblazer signs the deed over to
the appropriate government agency, which is then responsible for
providing the staff, salaries, and curriculum.
This process is critical to ensuring the school is sustained over time.

21. Trailblazer Foundation
reduces another barrier
to education:
transportation.
We provide hundreds
of bicycles to our
partner villages,
so students can travel
to school.

22. Since our inception in 2004,
we have built six schools and
two libraries.
Even before 2016 starts, we
have secured most of the
funding for a new school next
year.

23. The last piece of Trailblazer’s rural community
development strategy is economic development.
Here, one of the greatest challenges is access to capital, where
even small amounts of funding can help
start a new business, or turn a craft into an income.

24. Trailblazer has
helped create
a Village Fund
process, which
enables villagers
to get the capital
they need to
start or grow
a business,
through a
village-owned
and managed
microfinance
program.

25. And we require villagers to make a small
contribution to the Fund whenever they receive our
assistance in other program areas.
This ensures that our program work
helps provide capital for their Village Fund.

26. Finally, Trailblazer provides technical training to the
Village Finance Committees, and to villagers who
want to establish farmer cooperatives for selling
their excess crops.

27. Trailblazer Foundation
chooses our community
projects based on an
annual local government
assessment of village
needs. We are honored
to be one of only a
handful of NGOs invited
to this annual meeting.

28. Our four program areas—health, food security, education, and
economic development—represent a well-rounded strategy
for not just giving our partner communities a proverbial fish,
but helping them
learn how to live in ways that are self-sustaining.

29. Through this bottom-up process, the villages
themselves identify their needs. Their requests,
in turn, direct our annual activities -- which are
“developing ripples of sustainability through
community water projects.”

30. Please consider supporting our efforts.
The more than fifty villages we work with
will be far better off because of your generosity.
http://thetrailblazerfoundation.org/donate
Trailblazer Foundation is committed to the sustainable
success of all our projects and programs. With your
support, we will help hundreds of additional families
overcome the effects
of poverty, starvation and disease.