About
Our activity started as "The Cambodian Dormitory & Education Project" in 2003 supporting school fees and providing a safe dormitory for poor students in Phnom Penh. We have evolved into a more mature and diverse organization, with a focus on sustainability in various fields such as agriculture, education, renewable energy, health and just about anything related to idea and practice of sustainable development with appropriate technology.
Why Cambodia?
Before coming to Cambodia, I was living an idyllic life in Japan with no worries. It was perfect and I have enough money to contribute to various charities and making myself feel that I am contributing to causes that will help those who are less fortunate. I have visited Cambodia many times, but always in the context of a visitor visiting an exotic place.
This life was changed in February 2003. My friend was killed in mid afternoon while having lunch at a market in Cambodia. Some says it was phone robbery and other says it was politically motivated.
Whether this was robbery or politically motivated does not matter. What matter was that life so precious has so little value? His death started my journey. What I understood was that people were drive to desperation and lack of hope. Life does not hold the same value for them as it does for us.
I started to think about my own life and what contributions I have made to make a world a different world for myself and future generation. I have made no contribution to make the world a better place for future generation. My life was a façade of activities that does not make the world a different place for all of those in needs.
I moved to Cambodia in August 2003 to try to make a different. I started out by educating young engineering students who are poor and excel in their field. By 2004, I have started both a dormitory and education activities. Since then, at any one time, we provide dormitory and education for at least 16 kids, from high school age to university age who are poor.
To make our activities more sustainable, I purchased 20 hectares of land in Koh Kong Province (It was re-categorized in Sihanoukville Province in 2008) and started to develop a more sustainable and permanent approach to my activities in Cambodia.
My dream is to build the best College for Science and Engineering in Asia. We have so far expanded our land to about 500 hectares and additional several thousand hectares under our protection to preserve wild life and natural tropical forest.
The college is to be a place where nature, human, and science must co-exist without adversely impacting one another. To this end, we have developed our own power generation capacity (solar, wind and hydro-power); clean water filtration system; sustainable agriculture techniques and methodology that fits in our environment; health center to care for the sick in the community.
By being in this area, our interaction with the community influence changes in their perspective toward life and we hope that the local people will learn to live their life more systematically with hope for the future.
Please come and see for yourself. An hour of your time in our community will make a life long impact for the people in our community and yourself.
Dr. Peter Z. Li (Founder of CDEP)
Why Cambodia?
Before coming to Cambodia, I was living an idyllic life in Japan with no worries. It was perfect and I have enough money to contribute to various charities and making myself feel that I am contributing to causes that will help those who are less fortunate. I have visited Cambodia many times, but always in the context of a visitor visiting an exotic place.
This life was changed in February 2003. My friend was killed in mid afternoon while having lunch at a market in Cambodia. Some says it was phone robbery and other says it was politically motivated.
Whether this was robbery or politically motivated does not matter. What matter was that life so precious has so little value? His death started my journey. What I understood was that people were drive to desperation and lack of hope. Life does not hold the same value for them as it does for us.
I started to think about my own life and what contributions I have made to make a world a different world for myself and future generation. I have made no contribution to make the world a better place for future generation. My life was a façade of activities that does not make the world a different place for all of those in needs.
I moved to Cambodia in August 2003 to try to make a different. I started out by educating young engineering students who are poor and excel in their field. By 2004, I have started both a dormitory and education activities. Since then, at any one time, we provide dormitory and education for at least 16 kids, from high school age to university age who are poor.
To make our activities more sustainable, I purchased 20 hectares of land in Koh Kong Province (It was re-categorized in Sihanoukville Province in 2008) and started to develop a more sustainable and permanent approach to my activities in Cambodia.
My dream is to build the best College for Science and Engineering in Asia. We have so far expanded our land to about 500 hectares and additional several thousand hectares under our protection to preserve wild life and natural tropical forest.
The college is to be a place where nature, human, and science must co-exist without adversely impacting one another. To this end, we have developed our own power generation capacity (solar, wind and hydro-power); clean water filtration system; sustainable agriculture techniques and methodology that fits in our environment; health center to care for the sick in the community.
By being in this area, our interaction with the community influence changes in their perspective toward life and we hope that the local people will learn to live their life more systematically with hope for the future.
Please come and see for yourself. An hour of your time in our community will make a life long impact for the people in our community and yourself.
Dr. Peter Z. Li (Founder of CDEP)
