Women Peace Makers (WPM) began as a youth and women-led peacebuilding network in 2000 concerned with conflict and violence against women in their communities. In 2003, we formally registered as a non-profit and non-governmental organization in Cambodia and focused our efforts on empowering women, youth, and communities to address conflict non-violently and to stand up for women rights through community organizing, awareness-raising, and among others, capacity building on women rights protection and conflict transformation. At the same time, we sought to build networks of women and youth to engage in dialogue on women’s rights and contribute to positive social change. 

WPM is grounded in its approach and community voices inform all of its continued learning and strategic direction. At the national level, WPM serves as a steering committee member of the Gender and Development Network (GADNet), a network of 43 NGOs and individuals working on gender and development throughout the country. It is also an active member of The Cambodian NGOs Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (NGO-CEDAW), and of the United Nations YouthAdvisory Panel (UNYAP). 

“Our Turn! Voicing Out Multiple Marginalization Through Intersectional Solidarity” project aims to change the public narrative on multiply marginalized women and influence specific policy and practice discussion at local and national levels on issues they identify through their knowledge generation and collective ecosystem. This project intends to work with a diverse rightsholder group of 1). indigenous women, 2). women with blind, 3). LGBTQ+, 4). ethnic, religious, and cultural minorities, and 5). ethnic youth by supporting them to generate new and relevant knowledge on their groups, lead customized efforts to engage in their communities. They have their approaches using Facilitative Listening Design (FLD) for mobilization and skill-building, fostering solidarity across all marginalized groups to voicing out in advocacy both as an individual with special needs and as a collective force that leverages the power of unity. 

Influence Goal 1: Indigenous women to advocate for the rape crisis to be taken up by the government and civil society at all levels to push for policy and practice that acknowledge what is happening and demand a customized approach for Indigenous women that is grounded in their unique context and worldview.  

Influence Goal 2: Blind women to reframe “disability” and put the spotlight on “ability” to demonstrate a customized model to support blind women into the workforce and promote it as an approach for deeper inclusion for women with “abilities”. 

Influence Goal 3: The LGBTQ+ community to change the way society sees sexual orientation and push for the recognition of same-sex, intersex, and gender diverse relationships as equal.  

Influence Goal 4: Ethnic, religious, and cultural minorities to build deeper cohesion and push for their inclusion at every level in a diverse Cambodian society and will advocate for change on issues that are marginalizing them in a Khmer-centric system that associates ethnicity with nationality.  

Influence Goal 5: Ethnic youth to push the ethnic minority girls’ agenda among ethnic minority groups and in the general public to provide the space for girls’ participation and bring awareness of the challenges they face in their daily lives.