The Don Bosco Foundation of Cambodia (DBFC, in Khmer "សាលាដុនបូស្កូនៅប្រទេសកម្ពុជា") is a Non-profit organization of education founded in Cambodia in 1991 to give technical skill education to youth living in extreme poverty and to facilitate the schooling of marginalized children. The organization was a way to answer the needs of a country in its post-war period of reconstruction. DBFC is a branch of the Salesians of Don Bosco. The United Nations asked to the Salesians in Thailand to attend the children and youth of the Cambodian Refugee camps during the 1980s. DBFC answered this request by opening provisional technical schools in the camps. After the peace agreements, the organization was invited by the Cambodian government to settle in the country. The first printing press in Cambodia after the war, was provided by DBFC in the Don Bosco Technical School of Phnom Penh for the republishing, translating and writing of books and documents of education (during the Khmer Rouge Regime books were destroyed). Many schools were rebuilt in the villages and the Organization gained prestige as the first institution to provide technical education and to offer sponsorship to Cambodian children.
History
The genesis of DBFC started in the Khmer Refugee Camps along the Thai-Cambodian border in the early 80's after the 1979's Vietnamese invasion of the Khmer Rouge Cambodian Regime. The full control of the Khmer refugee camps was taken by the Thai Army that did not allow other foreign organizations to come into the camps for any kind of humanitarian activities. In this issue UN insisted to the Thai government to allow foreign organizations to attend the needs of the Khmer refugees. In 1989 Thailand agreed that the UN could send humanitarian help to refugees and among this was education to children and youth. UN asked the Catholic Church through the Catholic Office for Emergency Relief and Refugees. At its time, the Catholic Church asked the Salesians of Don Bosco in Bangkok to do something in technical education for Cambodian girls and boys of the refugee camps.
The Thai Salesians visited the camps allowed by the Thai Army and opened technical centers among the tension of battles in the area. When the war was over and Cambodia had a more independent government, many Cambodian families from the refugee camps returned to their country and the Don Bosco technical centers were necessary anymore. The experience in the camps attracted the attention of the Royal Government of Cambodia that sent a delegation to Thailand to study the works and ways of education of the Salesians of Don Bosco in that country. In this way, the Salesians were invited in 1991 to settle in Cambodia and open educational works for a country completely destroyed by war.