Vision:
Persons with disabilities and their families have capacity to reach active and fulfilling lives.
Mission
To support persons with disabilities in Cambodia, especially vulnerable people in society and to empower them to build lives for themselves and their families through Community Based Rehabilitation.
Veterans International Cambodia (VIC) started up in Cambodia as an international organization (IO) to work on physical rehabilitation program in late 1991, at the time a project of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation (VVAF) which was part of Bobby Mueller’s initiative, the former veterans of U.S. Marine in Vietnam War who was injured and became a wheelchair user. The VVAF’s Post-Conflict Rehabilitation Program (PCR) was to addresses the causes, conduct and consequences of war through programs of advocacy and service for victims of conflict around the world and provided assistance to war victims and to people left debilitated by anti-personnel mines and UXO's. Working in post-conflict countries, VVAF was a leading provider of comprehensive rehabilitative physical and social services that offer people with disabilities the tools needed to resume their lives as productive members of their societies. VVAF then changed the name to Veterans For America (VFA).
In 1992, VIC opened its first physical rehabilitation center at the Kien Khleang disabled center with funding from VVAF and USAID’s Leahy War Victims Fund. In 1995, VIC opened a regional facility in the Prey Veng province to extend services to persons with disabilities in the densely populated southeastern region of Cambodia. In August of 2000, VIC opened its third center at the northern of Cambodia, in the Kratie Province, on the ground of the provincial hospital.
In January 2009, VFA transferred the American headquarters and management of the VIC to The International Center. The International Center (IC) is a Washington, DC based 501(c) 3 non-profit organization founded in 1977 to focus on issues between the United States and the developing world. The International Center had projects in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the former Soviet Union.
Veterans International Cambodia (VIC) was localized in July 2014 registered with the Ministry of Interior (MoI) and is a non-profit humanitarian organization, founded under Cambodian law as a Local Non-Governmental Organization (LNGO). VIC with the support funding from USAID Leahy War Victims Fund, has operated the three physical rehabilitation centers (PRCs) in Kien Khleang, Prey Veng, and Kratie with a transition plan to handover to the government.
To ensure sustainability of the handover process, the USAID/Cambodia decided to award to VIC to support for a program entitled “Rehabilitation and Prosthetics Program for persons with Disabilities in Cambodia” effective from June 12, 2015 to September 30, 2019. In the last 5 years, VIC works closely with the MoSVY and PWDF to ensure the sustainability and the handover of the three physical rehabilitation centers (PRCs). VIC has successfully handed over the three Physical Rehabilitation Centers (Kien Khleang, Prey Veng, and Kratie PRCs) to MoSVY/PWDF and organized an official handover ceremony at the Kien Khleang Head Office on December 14, 2018.
