The gift of education has been established in the remotest jungles of troubled Cambodia thanks to the efforts of big-hearted students and teachers in Bahrain.
As reported recently in GulfWeekly, pupils and staff members at St Christopher’s School held various fundraising events as part of an initiative to build a sustainable learning facility in the post-conflict Far East nation.
Three teachers have returned from a journey to see the fruits borne from the community effort. Alyaa Bataineh, Kirsty McKay and Annabel Brandreth visited the Ka Narng Ket School, located in the Lumphat District of Ratanakiri, and taught the children while spreading friendship and goodwill.
Annabel, Reception Year leader, said: “It was amazing to see the school in action, with the knowledge that we at St Christopher’s made it happen. It is wonderful to think that we have made a real difference to the future of these children and will continue to do so.”
The Go Global Cambodia Project was launched in association with UK-based charity United World Schools (UWS), who have provided educational opportunities for 5,000 children in Cambodia and Myanmar, with the aim of reaching 50,000 in five countries by the end of 2019.
Alyaa, Reception teacher and community service co-ordinator, said: “United World Schools have been so happy and grateful for our efforts and how we got the whole school to join in. But for us, it’s a pleasure to see how they go about their work as these days, there are so many charities about and you aren’t sure where exactly your money is going or if you’re paying for administration costs. The cool thing about this trip was seeing the school which has been built directly and solely from our funding.”
The group flew to Phnom Penh before driving eight hours to the small town of Banglan, where they stayed for the night. They then drove for another two-and-a-half hours through muddy roads and jungle to reach the school.
At one point, there were two bridges consisting of cobbled-together wooden planks, and the group had to evacuate their 4x4 and let the driver cross alone before they walked across, to avoid the bridge collapsing.
Alyaa explained: “When we reached the school, we slept in hammocks that were set up inside the building. It consists of three big rooms, two of which are classrooms and the third is a library room with a lot of floor space for the children to play.”
Alyaa continued: “There are about 60 children from the surrounding village area now getting daily education, whereas previous to this nobody had had that opportunity. All the kids intermingle in the class since everyone is at the same level of learning, so you have, for example, children aged four and nine together rather than age groups.”
A typical day consists of a 7am-11am morning session, and then an afternoon session from 1pm-5pm. The residents of the village are an indigenous tribe which speaks a local dialect, so most lessons are spent learning basic Cambodian, rather than English, from a multi-lingual teacher.
Kirsty, community service leader at the senior school, discovered that her laptop and iPad were objects of fascination as many of the children had never seen photographs or videos of themselves, and were absolutely thrilled at this new discovery. Electricity is available for a few hours in the evening thanks to solar panels installed on the school’s roof.
Although school finished at 5pm, almost every child came back to the school after going home to shower and eat and stayed until late in the evening to spend time on the tablet’s Photo Booth app taking photos and pulling funny faces, while Alyaa painted little girls’ nails for the first time.
Kirsty said: “This really was a life-changing experience, to understand the struggles of children in this remote north-eastern corner of Cambodia, but know that we have put a smile on their faces and are giving them an opportunity very few here receive.”
The three teachers, having already learned basic colours, numbers and shapes, then spent a day taking a class on their own, using puppets and other resources like LEGO bricks and dice as aids to, in turn, connect to the children.
Alyaa said: “Most lessons in the school involve sitting and listening to the teacher and then writing things down, so this was a special treat for them. Unfortunately, the school is poorly resourced as it’s so far to the nearest town to buy stationary and the children get through the basics quite quickly, so we took a load of essentials like pens and paper with us, as well as reading books and other useful resources.
“I’ve done community service here in Bahrain, but I’ve never been able to see the impact that it’s had, and for all three of us it was a real eye-opener. We wanted to see the results of our efforts first-hand and bring something back for our pupils who raised the money; such as pictures, videos and stories.”
The work does not end here, as St Christopher’s already has a plan in place with UWS to start building a new school in Nepal, which is an even more pressing need due to the tragic earthquake which devastated the country earlier this year.
For more information about UWSchools and its projects, visit https://www.unitedworldschools.org/
