Since 1993, after reaching the Paris Peace Accord on October 23, 1991, Cambodia has adopted the principles of democracy under controlled of UNTAC (United Nation Transitional Authority in Cambodia) and after that many  NGOs has been established. Unfortunately, the government has no willing to bring a real democracy to Cambodia, for instance, the government brutially cracked down on non-violent demonstration staged by  students/youth, monks and ordinary people against the fraud result of National Election.

To promote democracy and human rights respect in Cambodia, SMD has conducted a series of training courses on Democracy, Human rights and Student and Leadership to students from every corners of society in order to assist them to understand about their responsibilities and rights in promoting democracy.

Founded by students and monks during the mass demonstration in 1998, Students’ Movement for Democracy (SMD) realizes that Cambodian must accept
the democracy instead of dictatorship. So together with local and International NGOs, SMD has been conducting training on the democracy and human rights respect on various topics, such as Youth and Democracy, Youth and Political Right, Students and Democracy, Rule of Law, Advocacy, Election and Democracy and leadership.”

SMD has started the first training course in 2001, participated by youths, monks and students from various educational institutes and universities in Phnom Penh. Since 2001, SMD has conducted the 10 training courses on various topics as mentioned above since 2001 and forty to fifty participants have participated in each course.

We conduct three courses a year, and each course lasts for two months that held one day a week on every Sunday. The courses are presented and facilitated by speakers who came from other NGOs working on democracy and human rights in Cambodia such as CCHR (Cambodian Center for Human Right), LICAHDO, ADHOC, IRI (International republican Institute) and YCC (Youth Council of Cambodia).

The purpose of this training course is to enhance democracy and human rights respect in Cambodia. In addition, we want to encourage the Cambodian to understand their roles and duties in the name of the youth in democratic society, especially involve them into the political rights as stated in constitution of Cambodia.