Like all youngsters his age, Raj Ridvan Singh aspires for sports cars and a funky look. But what differentiates him from others is his sense of social responsibility.

He sports a lower-lip piercing, an ear stud and keeps chatting online on his pocket PC. He also dabbles in modelling and disc jockeying in his free time. And he raves about his latest possession — a Fiat Coupe sports car. Raj Ridvan Singh, all of 22 years, comes across as just another affluent Malaysian kid.

But that impression lasts only till you see him walking away with the Youth Award 2005, instituted by Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP), an international network comprising NGOs, policy makers and civil society organisations. The award, given in recognition of young social entrepreneurs who have transformed social development into a sustainable enterprise through use of information and communication technologies, was presented at the recent World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) held in Tunis, Tunisia, recently.

Raj, whose family migrated from India to Malaysia a couple of generations ago, won the award for his project imparting education and life skills to school dropouts in Cambodia, one of the poorest countries in the world today.

He, along with his father, Madenjit Singh, and younger brother, Dhinu Dhanveer Singh, founded the `Leadership Character Development Institute' (L-CDI) five years ago in Cambodia. When Madenjit Singh decided to go to Cambodia and set up L-CDI, the move pulled out the then 17-year-old Raj from the laps of luxury in Malaysia and hurled him into the throes of poverty, struggle and hardships in strife-torn Cambodia.

"You can't imagine what we went through those days. We slept on the floor, had to bathe in the open and travelled in local trains with chicken and pigs for company," recalls Raj, whose maturity belies his age. But the father-sons trio was determined in its mission. From the first 24 students in Phnom Penh, L-CDI has become the largest institution in Cambodia providing non-formal education. It has over 1,800 full-time boarding students in 24 centres and about 3,000 part-time students across the country. The project has also won laurels from the Cambodian King and the Ministry of Education.

L-CDI targets mainly school dropouts, especially girls. It is estimated that at least 63 per cent of Cambodian children drop out of schools before reaching the seventh grade. These children are mostly from rural areas and already suffering from malnutrition and other ill effects of the Khmer Rouge era, and are also vulnerable to the dangers of prostitution, child trafficking, alcohol, drug abuse, and HIV. It was against this backdrop that Singh set out to establish L-CDI with his two sons. Raj and his brother stayed with the students in their school to impart the training programme developed by Singh.

In the first stage of the programme, L-CDI imparts English education, mathematics and personality development. In the second stage, students are trained as teachers so they can train others. In stage three, these advanced students are sent to provincial centres with the responsibility to teach stage-one students. In the fourth stage of training, a higher-level job requirement skills training is offered wherein students are trained in management, computers and other vocational skills. Over 60 per cent of the L-CDI-trained have found jobs with NGOs, schools or have started their own business. Through its educational programme, L-CDI also reaches out to the families of the students and communicates messages on health, environment and social responsibility.

Raj could have stayed put in Malaysia with his well-to-do joint family, when his father shifted to Cambodia with his mission. At 16, Raj became the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional in ASEAN. A year later, he was also the youngest Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer in the region. Soon he landed a job with a multinational computer-training institute and was put in charge of their computer systems department. "I was doing very well for myself at that point of time, earning a good salary," he recalls. But his respect for his father, whom he adores, gave Raj no second thoughts about moving to Cambodia, or leaving his job.

All the accolades he has won so far, including the GKP Youth Award, have proved to him that his decision was not wrong. In 2004 Raj won the International Youth Action Network Award sponsored by the International Youth Foundation and Nokia. He has also represented Malaysia in the International Youth Parliament at Sydney in 2004 and the World Youth Congress at Morocco in 2003, besides attending the Asian Youth Leaders Forum at Singapore in 2003 and World Youth Jam at San Francisco the previous year.

While working with his father in Cambodia, Raj also acquired business skills. Today he manages a used-car exports business and a manpower placement consultancy in Malaysia. "Both my businesses are doing very well now," he says. Recently, he acquired his object of desire — the Fiat Coupe. "Ever since this car was launched, I wanted one. I always used to go to a showroom and admire this car," he says.

This year L-CDI has decided to transfer itself to the hands of Cambodian volunteers, as the project has achieved its mission. The local volunteers, who are registered as Grassroots Development Institute, an NGO, will run the project. The essence of the L-CDI project has been encapsulated in a programme called Science of Life, which Raj now plans to pass on to youth organisations. Besides, he is now extending the programme to East Timor and Laos.

"Many people think that social work is dull and those doing it are a different type of people. I want to change that opinion, especially among the youth." To impress the youth, and be accepted by them, he sports a `funky' look, complete with body piercing!

Well, that ensured that at almost every check-in point in Tunis, security officers frisked Raj, while other WSIS delegates walked through. But even though he might have looked out of place at a United Nations' global conference venue, surely among the poor in Cambodia, he never feels out of place.

Picture by the author

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