Our Mission
Connecting changemakers throughout the world to create local solutions to global problems.
Community First is a network of change makers that creates innovative solutions to the problems of poverty and shares and implements those solutions around the world. Our goal is to empower communities in need to sustainably improve the quality of their lives and move them out of poverty.
Our vision is to have a significant and sustainable positive impact on the lives of Cambodians living in rural villages by connecting individuals who can contribute their intellectual, financial and other essential resources.
By empowering people to become the change they want to see in the world, Community First has helped create dozens of programs in forgotten communities, providing live-changing opportunity to thousands of families.
Today, Community First is using the advances of social media and user generated content in order to give the opportunity to schools, universities and service clubs to become more involved in changemaking.
COMMUNITY FIRST
- A community of changemakers and people driven nonprofit organization. Our mission it is to connect and pool our resources together in order to bring about lasting change in poverty stricken communities through the creation of local solution to global problems
- We do not focus on a single aspect of poverty reduction, and believe in creating an eco-system of solutions that address the multiple problems that relate to poverty – we call it integrative community development and we’ve developed our own system.
- We connect changemakers by working with a network of volunteer engineers who donate their grey matter using our own online volunteering social network – Community First Exchange.
- In pursuing the above, our current focus is on aquaponics and lacquer. We look for inspiration in Cambodia’s heritage while updating ancient practices (EMs) with modern ones (3D printing).
- Follow us along with a network of likeminded people, movements and organizations: Millennial Impact, Be Fearless, Case Foundation and TED.
Guiding Principles
- Value social, environmental and economical impact of our work
- Emphasize reliable technology-driven solution (ancient/future)
- In our day and age, people should be able to donate more than money
- Millennial Kingdom
- Finding inspiration in ancient practices is more likely to help us find off-grid solutions
- Bringing local solutions to global issues so that they can be scaled
- Non-ethnic, non-tribal and non-denominational: GLOBAL
- No hand outs policy
LIKEMINDED PEOPLE
INSPIRING MEDIA
Recent Posts and Articles
Rice Husk as a Growing Media
25 Oct 2015We have a lot of exciting aquaponics projects at work here in Cambodia. We have experimental grow beds at the Tuk Vil farm, where we are testing KEM (Khmer Effective Microorganisms) in sustainable aquaponics systems to see how their presence
Meet the changemakers
26 Feb 2015Community First’s goal is to create local solutions to the global problems of poverty by connecting changemakers from throughout the world. Meet the students of California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA) and how they’re doing their part in turning the challenges of
Community First is Moving Forward!
04 Nov 2014We are connecting changemakers to create local solutions to the global problems of poverty…
…in order to help forgotten communities lift themselves out of poverty.
Thanks to the Pasadena Rotary, we are able to provide basic needs for the families
Aquaponics and Fish Farming in Cambodia
09 Aug 2014
Introduction to Cambodia’s inland fisheries
The objective of Community First aquaponics project is to provide individual families without resources the means of farming fish sustainably for their own consumption and for sale on the market. Although we intend to develop
Introduction to Cambodian Lacquer
09 Aug 2014
Visit to Eric and Thierry Stocker in Siem Reap
A nice villa in a small street of Siem Reap is where Angkor Artwork makes the most beautiful lacquerware. A visit to the lacquer workshop, tucked in the shaded garden