Programme Overview
Cambodia is a post-conflict culture. Cambodia has suffered a series of coercive and brutal regimes leaving Cambodians, their communities and nation with few mechanisms to resolve dispute peacefully. Since the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime that killed over two million people, Cambodia has suffered eleven years of foreign communist occupation and civil war. In the late 1990s, the genocide became the subject of serious UN inquiry for the first time, followed by violent democratic elections, and numerous coup attempts. Finally, in 2003, the UN and the Cambodian government agreed to hold a trial in Phnom Penh conducted jointly by international jurists and Cambodian lawyers and judges.
Although Cambodian youth and children cannot understand the depth of anguish and strain experienced by their parents’ generation they have nonetheless experienced under their parents, teachers and neighbours, corresponding patterns of control by threats and violence. Collective trauma is thus far causing escalating violence in our society. Cambodian society is vulnerable to violent conflict at individual, communal, national, and regional levels. Particular issues concerning Cambodia which ACT seeks to empower communities to address are:
Download ‘A Conceptual Framework of Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding’ by Soth Plai Ngarm Interfaith Initiative for Peace in Cambodia (IIPC). 
Whilst a very real potential source of conflict in Cambodia, the IIPC project recognises the unique potential that religious diversity can offer Cambodian communities to experience difference in a positive light.
Interfaith Peacebuilding is the basic act and practice of people of diverse religions and spiritualities who are willing to come together to both understand each other and seek to create social change within society. The project emphasises common humanity over theological difference. The aim of the IIPC is to contribute towards a culture of peace and the development of human rights in Cambodia by promoting sustainable interfaith understanding and cooperation. Over the next 2 years, it will target community individuals from different faiths in 5 provinces. Strategically, IIPC is working in close cooperation with key people/community leaders at community level. We have carefully identified and selected these key people directly from target areas through our research process. They key people/community leaders will come into contact with IIPC activities at different stages and with specific components, such as Interfaith dialogue, workshops, seminars, skills training, exposure and direct impact activities within their community. For more information on the project download IIPC brochure in English or Khmer Inter-Ethnic Peacebuilding Project (IEPB) 
Racial and ethnic conflict has been a rising issue of concern in Cambodia over recent years as grievances have arisen along nationalistic and religious lines.
The IEPB Project focuses on the promotion of a more positive, inclusive vision of Cambodian national and ethnic identity and relationships through training, education programmes, research and cultural exchange.
ACT have been building on its ongoing research on Ethnic Conflict Transformation since January 2004. We actively transform theory into practice by developing the skills of peace practitioners to actively engage in preventing and resolving ethnically-based conflict and through facilitating youth and NGO workers to become advocates for and models of peaceful relations with other ethnic communities. The NEIP views the engagement and involvement of young Cambodians to be an important constituency for peace and the creation of a peaceful multi-ethnic society. One particular focus of the IEPB Project over the next year is the development and implementation of a new peace curriculum for schools. In the current formal educational system, while some concepts of morality are taught, information about different cultural groups within Cambodian society is not. The curriculum would provide teachers and students with a factual basis for forming their views, as opposed to myth which, in the absence of such information in the current system, has often been the basis for ill-informed beliefs. For further information please download our publication "Understanding Inter-Ethnic Relations and National Identity in Cambodia" or the "Nationalism and Identity" Workshop book Multiple Approaches to Conflict Transformation Course (MACT) 
The MACT Project is specifically aimed at converting peacebuilding theory into action at a community level. The project will be run in 3 different provinces over 3 years. The target groups will be commune councils, NGOs and the Buddhist Monk and Nun community. The project will train influential community members on the understanding and analysing of conflicts, the intervention and transformation of conflicts and strategy planning and community peacebuilding.
The Project particularly aims to build relations between the Buddhist community, commune councils and NGOs and promote the benefit of working together and with all parts of society, to address conflict in a constructive manner The project, which builds on similar successful ACT training in Battambang and Siem Reap, will emphasise:
Trauma Management Project 
The Trauma management project aims to help heal different kinds of trauma and break down the collective fears that have, after decades of civil war circumstances, led to a “habit of thinking” and a general paralysis. In so doing, individuals become better able to act and to regain responsibility, begin a dialogue with the members of their own and other population groups and jointly work towards better living conditions.
In addition to dealing with anxiety disorders and trauma, the project is also intended to build up the self-esteem and sense of worth of the often intimidated rural population. Cambodian participants will train to become qualified trauma management practitioners. Participants are trained in the western psychotherapy approach and then in Buddhist psychology. After the traditional Buddhist culture and tradition was destroyed in Cambodia, the re-establishment of religious and spiritual values seems to be a key factor in the Cambodian society. Participants are drawn from Buddhist, Christian and Muslim traditions. Birgit Ottow is a psychologist and ethnologist, working in Germany as a psychotherapist, mainly with trauma survivors from areas of war and crisis. She also works for foreign aid companies (GTZ) in the field of intercultural coaching, crisis prevention, and therapy for victims of violence. Besides her work in Germany she works in Asian and southeast Asian countries. She is a Behavioural, Hypnotherapy and EMDR Therapist, and is also trained in Systemic Therapy and will train on the Western Psychotherapy approach. Dr. John McConnell will qualify the local therapists in Buddhist psychology. He is a philosopher and author, living in Great Britain and working in Asian and southeast Asian countries for more than 30 years in the field of conflict resolution and peace building. He is the author of “mindful mediation” which was translated into different Asian languages and “Dhamma and healing”. Intra-Organisational Conflict Management Consultancy Services (IOCM) 
This project develops a better understanding of the structural issues that cause or contribute to organisational conflict within Cambodian NGOs and unions. The IOCM research Baseline Survey initiative highlighted the serious nature of Intra-organisational conflict present in Cambodian NGOs and Unions. The IOCM offers a range of services for CNGOs:
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