Friends International (FI)

Partner Since: 2005
Project Title: Child Safe Program: Protecting the rights of street children and their families
Target Area: Phnom Penh and Siem Reap
Summary: The project contributes to improving the rights of street children by developing child-safe policies and strategies. “Facilitators” and tourists are targeted for information campaigns. Project activities include
  • Awareness raising of facilitators (guest-houses, restaurants, motor-taxi drivers), tourists and the larger community about sex tourism involving minors
  • Establishing systems/procedures/awareness to ensure access of street children and their families to legal protection and emotional support
  • Design and implement a Child-Safe policy for hotels and guest-houses and promote the policy through specific website, media
  • Produce materials by and for street children about their rights
  • Support street children and adults to register for family books, identification papers, elections.

About the Organization: Friends-International is a non-political, non-religious NGO, established in 1994 to support to street children, their families and their community worldwide. The objective of Friends-International is to support street children enabling them to become independent and productive adults in their society.
In 1994 Friends-International founded Mith Samlanh/Friends in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Since 1999, Friends-International has been increasingly involved in supporting and training organizations working with street children in the region and advocating the issue of street children on the international scene.
Friends-International has extensive experience in running child-rights projects, with an emphasis of rights for street children. Friends-International represented Cambodian NGOs at the UN Special Session for Children in New York, developed effective protection and monitoring policies for children at risk of sexual abuse as well as rehabilitation projects for abused children. Additionally, Friends-International developed all aspects of child participation within its different projects and initiated the pilot phase to this proposed Child-Safe Project under British Embassy funding.
Friends-International is a federation with International Support Offices in France, Germany, the USA and Switzerland. The French office operates as Board to the project (contacts: Mr. Denis Marot, Mr. Pou Chothi, Ms. Marie-Helene Sbraire; france@friends-international.org)
Friends-International has an office in Phnom Penh that coordinates and monitors all field activities. This office currently supports the projects and activities in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Honduras. Specific country offices are open on the site of activities when required (Lao PDR).
Friends-International was awarded the Order of Australia for “service to humanity”, the gold medal of the Royal Cambodian Government, the silver medal of the Société pour l’Encouragement au Progrès.
Mith Samlanh
The NGO Mith Samlanh (“Friends” in English) was established in August 1994 by Friends-International as a non-religious association working with street children in Phnom Penh. The NGO was established in response to the needs of street children, including their families and their community. The projects of Mith Samlanh aim to help the children's social reintegration (reintegration into their families, the public school system, the workplace, and their culture).
Mith Samlanh consists of 220 Cambodians staff. They include social workers, teachers, skill trainers, doctors, house parents, cooks and cleaners and a small administrative staff.
The Mith Samlanh management team is responsible to the Mith Samlanh Board. The Board currently comprises 8 members (4 Cambodians and 4 Expatriates) from the NGO world, business world, plus 1 Donor Representative (non-voting). The Board provides directions to the Project Directors, reviews and approves the budget and the yearly report, reviews the annual work-plans and budgets, appoints, evaluates and terminates the Friends Director.
The overall objectives of Mith Samlanh are:
  • Reintegrating the children into society
  • Meeting the street children's immediate essential needs in accordance the Convention on the Rights of the Child
  • Building the capacity of the Cambodian professionals to improve overall services to children.
Mith Samlanh is organized into sixteen inter-linked programs that include: prevention, outreach, safe migration, Boarding House, case management project, transitional home, training center, remedial school, placement, reproductive health, HIV/AIDS prevention and support, drugs prevention and rehabilitation, culture, capacity building, businesses and child rights. The Child Rights component promotes the implementation of all aspects of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Cambodia (especially participation and protection) and protects and supports children who have been subjected to abusive situations.

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