The history of Don Bosco Foundation of Cambodia ( DBFC) had its starting point in the Khmer Refugee Camps, along the Thai-Cambodian border, in the early 80's, after the 1979's toppling of the Khmer Rouge Regime by a Cambodian force led by Hun Sen, Heng Samrin and other patriots, backed by the Vietnamese armed forces. Full control of the Khmer refugee camps was then taken by the Thai Army ; they did not allow any foreign organizations to come into the camps for any kind of humanitarian activities. After UN repeated pleas to the Thai government to allow relief organizations to help the Khmer refugees, in 1989 Thailand finally allowed UN to send humanitarian help including education to children and youth. UN asked the Catholic Office for Emergency Relief and Refugee to provide technical education for Cambodian girls and boys of the refugee camps, and the latter asked Don Bosco Salesians operating in Thailand to act accordingly.

The Thai Salesians visited the camps and opened technical education centers when battles still were going on in the area. When the war was over and Cambodia had an independent government, many Cambodian families from the refugee camps returned to their country, but Cambodia was lacking basic infrastructures, hospitals and schools. Thanks to the previous experience in the refugee camps, the Salesians were invited by the Royal Government in 1991 to settle in Cambodia and open educational works for a country completely destroyed by war.

The first technical school was completed in 1993 in Phnom Penh. The success of the first years of technical education provided by Don Bosco led the Royal Government to donate other land for educational purposes to the Salesians in Battambang and Sihanoukville. At the same time, the Salesian Sisters joined the project in Cambodia by opening other vocational training centers in Phnom Penh. DBFC created also the Children Fund with the intention to build schools in villages and support an intensive program of sponsorship for children education. A technical school was opened in 1997 in Sihanoukville, on an undeveloped area near the O-Pram village, a couple of miles from downtown.
Until now, the Technical School of Sihanoukville ( now Preah Sihanouk) has graduated thousands of young boys and girls, the majority of whom now has a good job and a prosperous life.