Overview

Indigenous Community Support Organization (ICSO) is a local Cambodian not-for-profit, non-governmental, non-partisan association established to serve the public benefit. Indigenous Community Support Organization (ICSO) is registered with the Ministry of Interior.

Background

ICSO was established on 1st July 2006 by a group of Governance Board members, key Community Forestry International (CFI) project staff and IP elders. In the process of creating the organization, the Governance Board recruited a National Program Coordinator for support. In 2008, this position changed to Executive Director. ICSO registered with the Royal Government neither of the Kingdom of Cambodia on 13 July 2006, Certification #840 SorChor Nor of the Ministry of Interior, and started to operate in Ratanakiri province, Cambodia on 01st January 2007 in order to provide services to support the indigenous communities through its 2007-2009 Strategic Plan. From the beginning in 2007, ICSO knew the traditional indigenous communities are organized at the scale of villages, as the village is the main social, economic and jurisdictional structure. However, the challenges that indigenous communities are now facing can seldom be solved at such level. This new context forces indigenous communities to establish links and networks in order to extend their capacity for solidarity, advocacy and rights defense. Moreover, confrontation with the external world requires new knowledge, new techniques and capacities that are not available at village level. Networking is therefore an important step for indigenous communities at that stage.

Mission

To develop and support the capacity of indigenous community networks and movements so they have the capacity to access basic services, to improve their livelihoods and work collectively to protect and manage their land, natural and traditional resources.

Vision

Indigenous communities are well equipped with knowledge, capacity and solidarity, and be able to take strong ownership in organizing community and collective actions to protect and manage their natural, socio economic and cultural resources.