Organization

Exceed Worldwide


Exceed Worldwide is a British disability charity, founded in 1989 as The Cambodia Trust, that provides prosthetics, orthotics and rehabilitation in Asia.[1][2] It began at Calmette Hospital in Phnom Penh, fitting artificial limbs for people hurt in Cambodia's long conflict, many of them landmine survivors. In 1994 it founded the Cambodian School of Prosthetics and Orthotics, the model for the training schools it later opened across South and Southeast Asia.[2][3]

History

The Cambodia Trust was founded in November 1989 in Adderbury, Oxfordshire, by the peace negotiator Stan Windass, the former diplomat John Pedler and the historian Peter Carey, in answer to a request from the Cambodian government for help for landmine amputees and other victims of the war.[1][4] Carey recalls it as a three-way partnership first talked over at the Horse and Jockey pub across from St Antony's College, Oxford. The film producer David Puttnam and Roland Joffé, director of The Killing Fields, gave it public support.[1][4][5]

Its first work was at Calmette Hospital, where it gave artificial limbs to victims of the conflict. Open Development Cambodia dates its first rehabilitation center there to 1991, and Harvard Public Health dates its first prosthetics in Cambodia to 1992.[2][5][6] The trust opened clinics in Phnom Penh in 1992, Sihanoukville in 1993 and Kompong Chhnang in 1995. They grew into physical rehabilitation centers offering prosthetics, orthotics, physiotherapy and community programs, and in time the trust built a network of 16 rehabilitation centers across Cambodia.[7][5] In the United Kingdom it was incorporated as a company on April 6, 1993, and registered as a charity on February 2, 1994.[8][9]

In 1994 the trust opened the Cambodian School of Prosthetics and Orthotics (CSPO) in the Stung Meanchey district of Phnom Penh, the country's first specialist school for prosthetist-orthotists. Its aim was a lasting Cambodian workforce rather than lasting dependence on foreign specialists.[2][3][5] The founder director, Carson Harte, and the deputy director, Anne Henriksen, started the school with four other nongovernmental organizations.[2] CSPO gained Category II accreditation from the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics, dated to 1997 in Exceed's history and to 1999 on the school's own page. In 1999 it began taking students from other countries in the region.[2][3] It became the first prosthetics and orthotics school in the world to earn ISO 9001:2000 certification, and Exceed says it was the first NGO in Cambodia to do so, in 2002.[3][2]

From a regional office in Singapore, opened in 2000, the trust drew up a plan to repeat the CSPO model in other countries. The Nippon Foundation of Japan funded the planning in full. The 2001 plan proposed schools in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines; Myanmar was a first choice but was put lower because foreigners had trouble getting visas.[2] Schools followed in Colombo (2004), Jakarta (2008), Quezon City (2010) and Yangon (2013).[2] In March 2005 the trust set up Timor-Leste's national rehabilitation center in Becora, Dili.[1]

As the work spread beyond Cambodia, with training schools and rehabilitation services in Laos, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Indonesia and the Philippines, the trustees renamed the charity Exceed Worldwide to reflect its regional reach.[2][10][1] The company name changed on December 17, 2013, and the new name was adopted in 2014.[8][2] The name and a new strategic plan kept the founding focus on prosthetics, orthotics, rehabilitation and training for people with physical disabilities in low-income settings.[2][10] The plan led to Exceed Social Enterprises, a wholly owned company that runs private clinics and a regional supply service and gives its profits to the charity's work, and to the Exceed Research Network, an international group of universities, NGOs and businesses founded in 2015.[2][11] A private, fee-paying clinic opened in Cambodia in 2015.[11]

Exceed handed its Sri Lankan school to local management in 2015 and its Indonesian school in 2018, and the Philippine school returned to full local management in April 2021. After the military coup in Myanmar in February 2021, face-to-face teaching at the Yangon school stopped; international staff left, and the students moved to Exceed's program in Cambodia.[11] In 2019 Carson Harte, by then chief executive, presented a paper at the World Health Organization's consultation on its Global Report on Assistive Technology in Geneva.[2] On May 17, 2023, Beast Philanthropy announced funding for more than 2,000 prosthetic and orthotic devices in Cambodia, after Exceed worked with MrBeast and his team on a video.[12] Harvard Public Health reported that the video let Exceed avoid layoffs that year.[6]

Work in Cambodia

In Cambodia, Exceed trains prosthetist-orthotists and prosthetics and orthotics technicians. The school is now the Department of Prosthetics and Orthotics in the Faculty of Prosthetic and Orthotic Engineering at the National Institute of Social Affairs. It offers a three-year bachelor's degree and a one-year technician certificate, both accredited by the International Society for Prosthetics and Orthotics.[13] The school takes 12 to 14 students a year, and Open Development Cambodia reported in 2014 that places sold to overseas students made the Cambodian operation 70 percent self-funded.[5] CSPO says it had trained more than 70 Cambodians and students from 21 nations, and Exceed later counted professionals from almost 30 countries.[3][12] Sisary Kheng, a graduate of the school and one of Cambodia's first women prosthetists, became Exceed's country director.[6][5]

Exceed gives free physical rehabilitation at three clinics, including provincial clinics in Sihanoukville and Kompong Chhnang, and final-year students treat patients alongside experienced clinicians.[13][11] Its community development program, including community-based rehabilitation, helps people with disabilities reach school, work and small-business funding, and its team in Phnom Penh tells people about services and works against the stigma of disability.[13][11][6] Community programs have served people in Phnom Penh, Kandal, Sihanoukville, Kampot and Kompong Chhnang.[7] In November 2018 Exceed began a two-year pilot with the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation and the National Institute of Social Affairs, moving its Modern Services Clinic to the school. At its Phnom Penh center, people who can pay may use subsidized or private services, and the profits support free care for the poorest.[11][13] Exceed, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Handicap International together ran or supported six of Cambodia's physical rehabilitation centers in 2024.[6]

Operations

Exceed is registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales as charity number 1032476 and at Companies House as company number 02807200.[14][8] Its register entry lists The Cambodia Trust as its former name, and working names including the Cambodian School of Prosthetics and Orthotics, the Sri Lankan School of Prosthetics and Orthotics, The Cambodia Trust Rehabilitation Project and ASSERT.[9] Its charity registration lists prosthetics and orthotics schools in Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Myanmar and rehabilitation centers in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and the Philippines, giving services free of charge to those most in need.[14][9] Its support office is in Lisburn, Northern Ireland.[12] In all, Exceed founded five schools in South and Southeast Asia and helped set up a school at Mahidol University in Bangkok. By 2022 four of the five, in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines, were under full local management, and Exceed kept a management support role in Cambodia.[11] Exceed says that in some countries 90 percent of people who need prosthetic and orthotic care cannot get it.[15][16]

For the financial year ending March 31, 2025, the charity reported income of £2,738,245, of which £2.13 million came from donations and legacies, and spending of £2,955,500, including £2.48 million on charitable activities. It had 119 employees and six trustees, none of them paid.[14] In the year ending March 31, 2024, income was £2,906,380 and spending £2,566,944, and the charity had 84 employees.[9]

Leadership

Officers (2023)
  • Carson Harte, chief executive[12]
  • Sisary Kheng, country director, Cambodia[12]
  • Thearith Heang, project director, Cambodia (undated)[13]
Board of trustees (as of 2024)[9]
  • David Boone, chair since January 25, 2019
  • Daniel Blocka, since August 17, 2011
  • Kokoro Motegi, since April 5, 2019
  • Steven Gard, since September 11, 2020
  • Dr. Cheryl Metcalf, since April 1, 2022
  • Paul Fleming, since June 24, 2022

Stephen Blatchford was a board member when Exceed held a week of strategic planning in Phnom Penh with Cambodia's Ministry of Health and Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mine-Ex Stiftung of Switzerland and the Australian-backed ACCESS 2 program.[16]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Peter Carey, Cambodia Trust: A Brief History (2020)
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 Exceed Worldwide, Our history
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Cambodian School of Prosthetics and Orthotics, About
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 The O&P EDGE, Peter Carey: Transforming Nations (2009)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Open Development Cambodia, 25 years on, prosthetics NGO changes direction (February 10, 2014)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Harvard Public Health Magazine, As Cambodia landmines aid dries up, a new approach is proposed (May 28, 2024)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Cooperation Committee for Cambodia, NGO database: Exceed Worldwide
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Companies House, Exceed Worldwide overview
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 Charity Commission, Exceed Worldwide full register entry
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Nippon Foundation, Asia prosthetist report (2019) (PDF)
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 Charity Commission, Exceed Worldwide annual report and accounts, year ended March 31, 2022 (PDF)
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 Exceed Worldwide, Mr Beast backs NI charity (press release, May 17, 2023) (PDF)
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 Exceed Worldwide, Cambodia
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Charity Commission for England and Wales, Exceed Worldwide
  15. ↑ Exceed Worldwide, official site
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Exceed Worldwide, home page

Sources

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This page was last edited on 2 October 2026, at 01:35.