Working as intern with School for Children of Cambodia (SCC) this summer, the thing I really enjoyed most is talking to the children about education, through Education Awareness activities. Of course, many children in Cambodia can’t go to school and one of several reasons is because they do not understand. Actually, when they are young they don’t know and they don’t know that they don’t know (The 7 Habits). It's the same as me, when I was young. As a university student, now I understand how important education is. Through talking about education with 128 grade 5 and 6 students in four primary schools (Svay Dungkum, Khnar Chas, Phoum Stung and Wat Mon Thyean), I realized that most students are interested and curious about education, jobs outside their community, city life, etc. Not only did we talk, but we also acted some educational role play, played educational games and had fun together. In those activities, I tried to explain and motivate the students to have optimistic hope in their near bright futures based on education. Some of them asked me what they should do...study to be a pilot? the prime minister? It’s amazing that they had the good reasons to support their goals and many want to develop their community. I was pleased to sit, talk and tell them as possible what they wanted to know about education.

However, there are many children in Cambodia who don’t understand yet and need educated people to talk with them. As one of the earth's members, we should live in inter dependent and care about the education in Cambodia, help Cambodian children to get the same quality and higher education.

They really need kindly help such as yours!

Written by: Raksmey, SCC Intern July - September 2008

Of course, education is the basic need for country and the world development. Good education system creates good human-resources. Good human-resources create good families. Good families create good societies. Good societies create good countries, and good countries create the good world. 

As I have worked for 2 months with SCC as an intern, I understand that education in Cambodia still needs a lot of helps. The government is trying very hard to make the education system get better and better, but it is still not enough and need more help from outside. It has been a very great time that I got a best opportunity to work with SCC as well as with all students, teachers, and governments officers. I do not have money to support the education system in my country, but I have my heart and my energy to work for it. I believe that if people unite each other to help, Cambodia will be more developed. If you have money, you can sponsor through your money, but if you have time, you can spend your time to work for the education, and if you have ideas, you can support by your good ideas.....

For two months intern with SCC, I got a lot of experience of education situation, communication with the community and government officer, mentoring, and team working. My responsibilities are:

• Education Awareness with students, teachers, and school support committee.

• Doing School Mapping. Analyze the data of dropping out rate, enrollment rate, and repeat rate. Find out the reasons.

• Inventory school and teaching supply. We need to communicate with schools and markets to search for supply and price.

• Select students from poor families to support in their secondary school level. 
   

What I like the most is Education Awareness with students. I found that mentoring is one of the best ways to keep students stay in schools and make students become good citizens in the future. I enjoy talking with them and provide them some good advices. Through the Education Awareness, I have played some short stories and songs that related to education and some other things to be a good and value people. I also provided them some educational games that could make them understand the value of education. Students can enjoy playing through the activities and they absorb things that we want them to understand. I have learnt from them that, most of them do not respect in study as they do have hope that if they spend time with studying, they can get better lives than the others or not. I also found that students in towns are higher understanding in education than students in rural areas. It is the inequality, and we should save this situation immediately. For instance, grade 7 students in town can write Khmer language fluently, while students in rural areas cannot write even their village’s name. It is things that I worry the most. How we can make all students in the whole country get the same quality of education. It is what SCC is working on. This is because of lacking of teachers and resources, and people do not know about the education’s value. One way to help is to let them know the value of education!

I hope that “WE” as a world member should be apart of education development. Cambodian Children still need a lot of help from us!

Written by:  Savada, SCC Intern July - September 2008

6^th August, 2008.

It’s my last morning at the Khnar Village homestay, Siem Reap before I head back to Sydney. The early morning pink glow over the freshly sown rice paddies warms my face as I reflect on the past two months of teaching:

I’m gonna miss the enthusiastic optimism of the young students at Khnar who charge across the dusty playground into the classroom as they see my bike roll through the gate.

I’m gonna miss the curious minds whose tiny bodies pile up in the doorway blocking out the polarising afternoon light; whose tiny faces appear and disappear at the window’s edge until they had courage to join my impromptu creche.

I’m gonna miss the ever-present, love-filled hellos that I drew from children splashing in road-side ponds; swinging from palm leaves; herding water buffalo or gliding on the back of bicycles gripping onto their sibling’s hips.

I’m gonna miss racing along the ochre ribbon of road that stretched from school to home as the sunset melted the sky and darkness quickly approached.

I’m gonna miss Yada’s playful hits and girlish giggling at my mispronunciations and awkward Khmar text messages. I’m gonna miss her tireless efforts in the kitchen whipping up amazing curries and soups and our post-dinner language exchanges when her eyes would light up with surprise when I had finally learnt a new phrase...hopefully she saw the light in my eyes too!

...this is merely a brief glimpse, I blink and I’m back in Sydney. My heart and mind opened by working with amazing people. Thank you SCC for giving me this awe-inspiring opportunity!

Donna Barton
SCC Volunteer, June - August 2008

November 2006

"There's something I want to do," I announced to my husband as we sat one evening tucking into an ASK pizza.

"Oh, yes?"

(Big breath) "I want to go to Cambodia next summer, on my own, and do some teaching."

And that's how it all started, one November evening, last year. There I was, a teacher of 30 years, with 3 grown up sons, about to embark on, what was, for me, A Very Big Adventure.

So, rather than writing about the experience retrospectively, I have decided to include some extracts from  e - mails I sent during this period which, I think, capture a better sense of the ‘immediacy' of this rather unique  experience (watch how the class size changes in the course of the e-mails!):

Thursday, 12^th July, 2007.

 First days

Just survived my second day at school; what an experience!

My day begins when I mount my mean machine (no gears, repaired puncture, a stand that needs a firm kick) and set off to brave the Siem Reap rush hour. For those of you unfamiliar with the traffic set up here, you simply point your vehicle in the appropriate direction and go for it!

My school, Sway Dong Kum, is only a 5-10 minute ride away from the centre but what a ride it is! Once down the side road, any hard surface quickly deteriorates into the all familiar terracotta coloured dirt track (or mud, it being monsoon season!) I just love cycling along here with its cacophony of children, dogs and people calling out "Hello!" to this strange white woman with a bulging bag on her back. The track is lined with a mixture of houses, food stalls, and promises of to ‘do your laundry', all interspersed with piles of plastic bagged rubbish and sodden fields of green stagnant water gently steaming in the heat.

The school itself is a single storey L-shaped concrete building. The classrooms have tall ceilings and are quite dark with the shutters being semi-closed to help protect against the heat. A permanent layer of dust seems to coat everything. The children sit at old wooden desks which would not look out of place in a Dickens' dramatisation with their dark wood and attached seats. The doors are left open to all and sundry; a dog joined us for part of a lesson today!

I am teaching three classes of varying ages and abilities. My youngest pupil can be no more than three years old! She is brought in by her big sister each day and sits at the desk, curled up to her sister, sucking her thumb and never uttering a word. Fortunately for me, the classes are rarely over 30 at present because some of the children are working in the paddy fields (a mother came into a lesson today and took her daughter away to help in the fields).

The children are absolutely delightful! They look very sweet in their school uniforms of white shirts and navy skirts' trouser - even though many of the tops are from white and have holes in them They love any sort of game (Bingo appears to be a favourite) and are keen to help ‘t'cher' in any way they can. Discipline is not a problem.

My problem, as anticipated, is trying to learn their names! Some of the children cannot even write their names in Khmer and, because Khmer has sounds unique to its own language, it's a nightmare trying to write the names phonetically!  I'm in the process of taking all their photos so I can have some ‘mug shots' to help me. Of course, they think this is wonderful, especially being able to see the result instantly on the digi camera!

Saturday, 28^th July, 2007

More tales out of school

I'm about to enter my 4th week of being here and feel very much at home with the increasingly familiar surroundings of Siem Reap.  It's funny how much the school has become such a normal part of life. I've now come to accept that although I have accumulated 42 different names on the register for one class, it is unlikely that I will see more than 35 at a time. Children who were there for the first few lessons have never been seen again (ominous!) while 'new' faces are constantly turning up.
As the end of term approaches and work demands on the land increase, attendance is increasingly sporadic. Then there are those who help their parents in the eating places in the town. It's no good getting frustrated; you just have to accept that as far as education goes, there are still things of greater importance for many of these people - even though they still want to learn English.
   The children continue to delight. There is a refreshing naivety and charm in which they take such pleasure in singing songs like 'One shoulder, one head..'  ‘Five little Ducks' (all with actions, of course) and playing ‘Snakes and Ladders' and ‘Simon Says'. I made masks with one class on Friday ; what excitement that generated when they saw the glitter and sparklies!
   Meanwhile, the odd younger sibling continues to accompany older brothers and sisters, pupils from other classes stand in the doorway or lean through the glassless window to see what is going on, while the odd child from a class I have just taught, will appear for a 'second' English class of the day! It's all very enchanting.
 
  
 Saturday 4^th August, 2007
 

Chopsticks
 
It was when I walked in and saw three to a desk that my heart missed a beat. The very last lesson with this particular class and I had decided to make masks with them - a success with a previous class, I had decided it would be worth a repeat performance.  So, the previous night, I had sat in my room patiently cutting out 40 butterfly shape masks  which, by my reckoning would be adequate for the usual 30-35 attendance.  It quickly became apparent that, with three to a desk, there were obviously more than the anticipated number. Just as I had started a head count, in walked the headmistress. Now this is one of the stranger aspects of the Cambodians: delightful, gentle, considerate people, once they take on any authoritarian role, it seems, to my Western ear, they can only address their counterparts by rattling out commands in their short, monosyllabic way. Anyway, It seemed the children hadn't actually done anything wrong; it was just that she wanted to give them their end of year reports - and, obviously, this explained why faces appeared today I'd never seen before.
   Anyway, as the reports were rattled out, I quickly did a head count and realised that the class had hit that mythical 60 about which I had heard so much. Panicking somewhat, I was relieved to discover on rummaging in my back pack  that I had some sugar paper - not quite as good as the coloured card but it was better than nothing!! So, a few more cut outs and by the time the headmistress had completed her onslaught, we were all ready to start sticking on the sequins and various sparklies.
   The next problem was that of the chopsticks. (I am not an Art/ Craft person; simplicity is the theme for me!) Thus, when the question arose as to how the kiddies were actually going to wear the masks, I'd hit upon the idea of taping a single chopstick on the back of the mask so that it could then be held up to the face. Brilliant - except that I hadn't allowed for the fact that floppy sugar paper would require two chopsticks in order to create some form of rigidity. So, out came the chopsticks and more counting......Outcome? Well, as far as I know, this story had a happy ending in that a lot of sparkly faced children were to be seen disappearing down the dirt track an  hour later. For my part, I cannot even begin to tell you how much sweat was dripping off me as I waved my last good bye!
   And final thoughts? Well, I never thought I would get weepy over children after such a short time. They were all such a delight, such fun and so easy to teach. Happy to share, co operate and work as a team, general classroom management was a dream.  Organising such things as  drawing up  a giant Snakes and Ladders board in the playground was easy: no grabbing or pushing and shoving; the children worked as a team, drawing out the grid lines, the snakes and the ladders. They were so good that I hadn't got the heart to penalise anybody who counted in Khmer rather than English!
 

Post script:

Twelve months later, I can honestly say that not a day goes by when I do not think about Cambodia, the warm friendly people and the delightful beautiful children I had the privilege (for, yes, that is what is was)  to teach at Sway Dong Kum school.

Thank you!