đź‘‹Friends International was founded 🚀25 years ago by a French 🇨🇵social entrepreneur, Sebastien Marot. This NGO 🌠can be considered as a social enterprise. Their mission is clear: protecting marginalized children 👦👧and their families and training👨‍🏫 them with professional skills leading to a full time employment 👨‍💼in Cambodia 🇰đź‡& South East Asia. We have been impressed by the professionalism of the teams and their structured processes from the care of distressed families 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦to full time job placement.
Last year with Friends, it was: 5 countries in South East Asia / 6000 children supported to go to schoolđź“— / 1400 young people accompanied to be employed / 7700 parents supported in the care of their children🌠🌠đźŚ
Saving Lives: When a youth in distress is identified within a community, the “Saving lives” teams provide a fastâŹď¸Ź & straight forward support (drugsđź’Š, health⚕️, violence issuesđź’Ą…) and perform an assessment on how they could support him in the best way.
Building Futures: A professional training is then proposed to young people👦 by the team “Building Futures”. 7 high potential job tracksđź’Ľ have been identified on which they have built training programs coupled with the launch 🚀of real businesses. Students and teachers work together in classrooms and then practice in “real-life” environment. In Phnom Penh🇰đź‡, Friends launched the Futures Factory, where a restaurant🍴, a hairdressing salonđź’‡, a beauty salon❇️, a fashion retail concept store🏪, a welding business🥽, an electricity company and a garage đźš—coexist together. By setting up social enterprises across 5 countries, young people👦👧 are trained with the right skillsets, while self-financing 30% of the budgetđź’° of the organization. It’s amazing, isn’t it? Once they pass their degree🎓, which is recognized by the state, Friends helps them to get a job thanks to their network of partners. We have checked the list🗒️ of requests from Friends’ partners, it’s a long one, well-done! ;-)đźŚ
Romain Sion 