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Support Cambodia Out Of Poverty

The Save Children In Asia School & Home, Cambodia

       
                        April 2008                                                          May 2009                                                        February 2010

 

The S.C.A.O. is where the SCOOP story begins. Andy encountered this inspiring NGO and it's director Sath Samith whilst travelling through Asia, in particular Phnom Penh, Cambodia in 2008. (pic, top left) The vision, hard work and will of Sath Samith and his wife inspired him to come home to Ireland and begin raising funds for the kids there.

First the bad news: Cambodia is a great nation that is still recovering from the atrocities of genocide, war, mass starvation and a fascist regime that devastated the country from 1975-1979. Approximately 33 percent of the population now is under the age of 15, many of whom are impoverished, living in social isolation or, worse, orphaned. Children roam the streets selling small items in the hope of making enough money to eat and to help support their families. Parents pay school fees in a daily basis if they can, but most times they need the money for food and the children are back begging on the streets, simply so they can go to school.

Now the good news: The S.C.A.O. (Save Children in Asia Org.) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO) outside Phnom Penh, Cambodia that provides a home, nutritious meals, healthcare, education and clothing to orphans and children living in conditions of poverty and social isolation. In a loving and caring environment, 22 children, Mr. Samith and his wife also live at the centre with their two children.

Mr. Samith shares the views of the SCOOP that every child in Cambodia (and indeed the world) should have the right to an education, food, healthcare and a loving home.

Not getting any help from the Cambodian government, Samith put up simple signs in hostels around the capital city, Phnom Penh, mentioning a school and home that was looking for volunteers to help him and his wife with their growing family. Volunteers arrived and helped anyway they could. A simple two storey, one room home (upstairs with everyone sleeping on mats on the floor) and a classroom (downstairs) was built (picture top left up above). Some bought sports equipment or big bags of rice, others simply came and taught the children phrases in English or played with them.

To cut a long story short, Sath (there he is there to the left) and his wife housed 8 children and had a small dank classroom. With the SCOOP's help, the centre has been completely transformed with extra bedrooms, classrooms, a new kitchen and workshop areas being added. We helped them build a bigger, outdoor classroom that at times can have up to 50 or 60 local children attending and learning English and Khmer and other primary education subjects (education was abolished in Cambodia in the 80's).

We also helped him buy school uniforms for all the children, and live without the worry of not being able to feed the children or to be able to pay rent; we also helped train two of the boys in mechanics. Sath also set up a small sewing enterprise there where they make their own clothes or items such as wallets and bags that they can sell to tourists. They now also have a computer room for all the children to become computer literate. We also helped the centre become better equiped against floods and theft. We are extremely committed to the S.C.A.O. School & Home and are very excited to see how it can grow and develop into the near future.

The 3 pictures at the top of the page show how the centre has developed from the two roomed building into a well functioning and successful school and home. It is now the hub of a community and sets the bar pretty high for future SCOOP projects. 

 

The SCAO/SCOOP Centre For Children, Cambodia


 

What we're doing:

The SCAO Centre (which opened its doors in August 2011) is going to be a English school, vocational training centre, community centre, aswell as a work-space and centre for NGOs such as SCAO, SCOOP, KiK, APLE and any other organisation that wishes to see the children of Cambodia living in social isolation far from harm, and with new oppotunities to education and life. The Centre will become the focal point for 350 children and their families in the village, which is situated 30km outside Phnom Penh.

On-going Education for a better future: We aim to offer the children the chance to an on-going education, as well as the chance to become fluent in English at an early age, a language that holds the key for so many people in Cambodia to earn a good living. So many children in Cambodia sporadically attend school, depending whether their families can afford it.

In so many cases, children attend school on a day to day basis, only if they have the €0.10c a day or so to actually go. In worse case scenarios, children offer more to their families by begging on the streets rather than attending school regularly. In the worst case scenario, some families are so poor that they are left with very little choice but to sell their children into the awful child-sex industry in Cambodia. (Western teachers, businessmen, doctors, even some women prowl Cambodia paying for sex, taking advantage of the extreme divides between rich and poor. See the work of APLE for more information). We aim to not only offer these children the chance to go to school daily and to ensure they are far from danger, but also to offer them the chance to keep going to school, either onto High School or even on to University.

Vocational Training: We aim to get to know all the children to see whether schooling is where their talent or passions lie, or whether they may benefit more from learning a vocation in order to become a mechanic, carpenter, builder etc. The main problem with vocations in Cambodia is that is is hereditry, as in fathers teach it to their children but no one else, again only because they can not afford to do so. We aim to use the Centre for local tradespeople and international tradepeople to get involved and help certain children and young people to a life changing skill.

We believe that by giving the whole community support and customised opportunities, the children and their families can successfully break the poverty trap and create a prosperous and loving environment around the children and future generations.

What you can do:

So we're looking for dedicated and passionate teachers, Development Studies grads/undergrads, tradespeople, artists and a myriad of general volunteers to live and work in the real Cambodia, and become the difference these kids need in changing their lives for the better!

On the third and fourth floors there are apartments and dorms geared towards volunteers with bathrooms, western toilets, a kitchen etc.
 

You can see some pics of the location of the new school here.

And you can see how the building is coming along here as of the 28th of November 2010.

Here are the pics from December 2010.


As of the 1st of January 2011, the school is about 1/2 ways finished.



(Tune: Belfast by Orbital)

Here are the pics from 19th of January.

Here are the latest pics, March 2011.
 

Why Cambodia?

Despite the wealth of tourist money that enters Cambodia, most of it ends up in the pockets of foreign business people, many even from Ireland.
Malnutrition is common among Cambodian children – 45% are moderately or severely underweight. Cambodia has the highest under 5 mortality rate in the East Asia and Pacific region. Some 61,000 Cambodian children died in 2005 before the age of 5 and an estimated 36% of the population lives below the basic needs poverty line.

Poverty in Cambodia is characterized by low income and consumption, poor nutritional status, low educational attainment, less access to public services including school and health services, less access to economic opportunities and exclusion from economic, social and political processes.
 




Stop Corruption On Our Planet

The School of Life (Jeevan-School), Varanasi, India

The School Of Life is quite simply one of the most astonishing and inspiring places you could ever encounter. It is a school for street kids and other poor and under privileged children in the holy city of Varanasi, Northern India.

They provide food, shelter and healthcare to the children as well as an education at their School Of Life which they built in 2005.

But this is not what makes the School of Life special and unique: they provide free classes in Hindi, English, Science, Environmental Education, Maths, Art, Music, Dance and Yoga! The teachers (local Indian women who are taught by Head Teacher Kati Richter) prefer to use innovative and holistic ways of developing the children mentally and creatively. They recognise that there is more to learning and development than school books and classrooms. They prefer to help the children learn through examples, experiments and experience. They recently introduced the children to the concept of light and prisms, and once a year the whole clan (60 children!) take off into the woods to camp and to discover and learn about nature.


They also also run a 'hostel', which the SCOOP has helped build, where 30 of the children live; those who most urgently needed to get out of their environment. We are helping them at this minute build a brand new kitchen for the hostel.

The hostel is managed by a local Indian, Sheelu, who has reached legendary status in our eyes. If he's not spending every night searching through waste-dumps or the streets to find the children who are in most need of care and attention, he is fighting with some parents of the children to keep them in school rather than on the streets begging for money or finding scrap metal for their families. In short, the guy's a bloody hero!

The School Of Life, known locally as Jeevan-School, was co-founded by Cork native Josh O' Shea, is run by Sheelu, and the education and teacher trainiing is in the hands of Kati. Their combined enthusiasm and attention towards the children are only surpassed by their results.

Again this is another example of inspiring work that the SCOOP will support. We helped them buy uniforms for all the children, helped Kati take 60 children on a holiday camping (see below for details) and are helping them now build a new safer hostel that will be bigger and brighter than the previous one and will have it's own running water, clean bathrooms and washing facilities. Watch this space for the updates and photos.


Andy and George's old school pal, Eoin Flinn, has been travelling around the world, and is in fact driving at present from Chengdu in China to Cape Town in South Africa. You can keep an eye on what he's up to and where on Earth he is on his own website Global Slacker. He even managed to pop into the School Of Life and the hostel to see how they were getting on. Unfortunately, school was out, but he did manage to find Sheelu, the overall manager of operations, and a man we find very inspirational here at the SCOOP:


 

Keep an eye on our blog for regular e mail updates from Head Teacher Kati about how she, the school, the hostel and all the kids are getting on. Trust us, these e mails provide amazing reading. Here's an example below:


SCOOP Director Annmarie at the School of Life!

 



SCOOP Director Annmarie recently visted the School of Life in October 2010 seeing how they're getting on. You can see her photos here which give a great insight of every day life at the school and in the hostel. They also show the spirit and achievements of Kati, Sheelu, the teachers and all the kids!











Soccer Camps Or Other Parks

Project Uganda!

SCOOP director Calvin likes to travel to Uganda. Calvin also likes to get stuck into a few projects in Kampala & Gulu to support young people and their extra curricular activities.

We are going to establish and fund the Young Star Football Academy and want Ireland to get behind the Ugandan Skateboard Union. We're working closely with local groups, the UPA (Ugandan Pioneer Association) in Kampala and the UYAP (United Action for Youth Progress) in Gulu.


We want to support the football academy becaue if some of the boys show promise, they can get a scholarship to some of the local schools over there and receive an education. It is a great and positive platform for the children to potentially change their own lives and those of their family.

Calvin is returning to Uganda in the Summer to equip and develop the football academy and to get the ball rolling on the skate park. It's usually a slow process getting things off the ground in Uganda, though with a little patience we can't wait to see these projects flourish!

You can see Calvin's pics from his trip here.