Our story
AMICA is a French association, but above all a group of people who decided to give some of their time, skills and energy to very practical projects in Cambodia.
Since 1992, one generation of volunteers and partners has followed another.
They do not necessarily have humanitarian experience.
But they all share the same wish: to be useful, in practical ways.
AMICA has never tried to become a big NGO.
No offices in Cambodia.
No heavy permanent structure.
A team made up mostly of volunteers.
Travelling light is part of who we are.
It lets us go into the field, listen, try things out, sometimes get it wrong, start again, and above all build relationships that last.
Our role is not to turn up with a ready-made solution.
We prefer to build, with residents, projects that belong to them.
Some come to an end.
Others change.
And the most successful end up running with less and less need for us.
As the country rebuilds after the Paris Peace Agreements, AMICA is founded to support practical projects in Kampong Cham province.
Jean Morel is part of this founding story.
The association soon focuses on essential needs: health, education and rural development.
AMICA supports the creation of learning spaces in the villages.
Language classes, help for children, a window on the world: education becomes one of the association’s common threads.
More than twenty years later, Salas are still running in Cheung Kok and Trien.
In Ampel, an abandoned health centre is restored as part of the Soleil Levant programme.
Renovated buildings, access to water, solar power: the health centre can once again welcome families from the surrounding villages.
It opens in May 2006.
Restoring what exists so that it is useful for the long term.
In December 2005, some sixty travellers visit Cheung Kok.
In one week, their visit brings in around 330 dollars.
An idea takes shape:
What if tourism could pay for part of the village’s development?
It is the start of an adventure that is still going today.
A first water supply network gives village families easier access to water.
But building the network is only part of the project.
Families pay for what they use. These fees pay the local team, cover maintenance and build up a reserve for repairs.
A simple principle starts to prove itself:
Water pays for water.
After Cheung Kok, AMICA supports the creation of a second network.
Together with Cheung Kok, 326 families are now served by the two networks.
In 2025, they need no funding from AMICA to run.
The project carries on. The grant can stop.
The pandemic brings tourism to a sudden halt.
918 visitors in 2020.
None in 2021.
But the fund built up over the years keeps paying the hosting team’s wages through the crisis.
Then the travellers gradually return.
Cheung Kok held on.
In 2025, Cheung Kok welcomes 4,362 visitors and earns 10,632 dollars from tourism.
100% goes to local people, with 80% paid directly.
The water networks run on their own.
The Salas still welcome pupils.
And nearly 50,000 travellers have now discovered Cheung Kok since records began.
The International Organisation of La Francophonie selects the project led by AMICA and provides €30,000 to support its next stage.
The aim is not simply to bring in more people.
It is to keep more value in the village.
Behind these dates and projects are dozens of people.
And of course, in Cambodia, the teachers, craftspeople, families, village leaders and local teams we have worked with, sometimes for more than twenty years.
AMICA is not an organisation you watch from a distance.
It is an adventure you can be part of.
In fact, few of us are.
We need people who can do what they already know how to do.
Or simply people who are free to lend a hand when we need it.
At AMICA, a good idea can quickly become a project.
And because we are a small team, your contribution doesn’t get lost in an organisation of several hundred people.
It shows.
Some choose to commit further and experience the work in the field.
AMICA regularly welcomes volunteers to support its projects in Cambodia.
Going means working with local teams, understanding another culture, facing reality and taking on responsibilities that might have taken years to get elsewhere.
It is not tourism.
Nor is it about coming to “save” anyone.
It is about working together, learning a lot and trying to be useful.
More than thirty years after it was founded, AMICA has chosen to stay simple.
We are not trying to be everywhere.
We prefer to commit where we think we can be truly useful.
Perhaps that is what is most like us.
Some projects have ended. Others now live on without us. New ones are starting.
And in a few years, we hope the timeline will have grown longer.
Not because AMICA will have grown bigger.
But because new people will have wanted to get involved and build what comes next with us.
Projects, people, results. Every now and then, straight to your inbox.
No spam. Just AMICA.
Talk soon, from the field.