Helping countryside children in Cambodia

Over 300 Khmer children wake up every morning in a small community just outside of Siem Reap. They are the third generation of a new Cambodia, rising from the dust and desolation brought by the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s.

Lily, 8, slips her hand into her father’s warm grip and skips down the dirt road. The hot sun kisses the back of her neck. Somewhere special awaits her.

Lily and 300 other students run, skip and jump to a makeshift school every day, 5 days a week. She’s learning to speak and write English. She’s growing food and learning how to stay safe on the roads, in a world where scooters and tuk-tuks rule the way. She’s learning about plastic pollution and what to do differently now that plastic is ubiquitous in a country that didn’t know plastic until a decade or so ago.

Some of Lily’s friends don’t join her at school; their parents keep them in the fields. They need help with just getting by, and the way the parents see it, schools “only give them pens”. Lilly tries to tell them otherwise, but they do not yet know the power of pens or knowledge or learning.

Ten teachers do what they can to teach Lily and her peers at the BFOK (Building Future Opportunities Kbalromeas) School. They are not paid, and have very few resources. The children sit on hard benches in open classrooms and hope the rains won’t come too soon this year – or last too long.

There are no walls on their classrooms, you see, but a worn world map reminds them that the world is bigger than this place of beginning. Unlikely to leave their country soon, the children learn one of the languages the world speaks, a gift given to them by Sophean, the man who asked himself what he could do to help his community and with but two hands built this place of hope and future opportunity.

Our family spent a day with Sophean and the students in May of this year. That day, we met volunteers from Canada, Australia and the United States who were building a dormitory for the second school Sophean has started. They built the dormitory in four days. We talked with the students, the teachers and Sophean and we were driven to help, too.

Now that we’re back in France, we’re working to secure more resources for Sophean’s schools. We have the opportunity to change the lives of over 300 students and affect future generations in untold ways.

Imagine having nothing four decades ago, and now, trying to rebuild your world. Imagine living without working toilets or clean water, living at the mercy of the rainy season, harvesting your own food and hoping you’ll have enough. Imagine a school down at the end of the road where you learn about faraway places and laugh out loud at the way faraway people say “How are you?”.

The BFOK school needs $10,000 per year to be able to pay its teachers, pay for electricity and water and Internet access. Sophean is building two more schools and needs $35,000 for the country’s poorest students to have a chance at a brighter future.

But you probably want to know more. For more information and photos of the school and the students, see: https://www.facebook.com/bfokschool/ or https://sites.google.com/site/bfokschool/ 

If you are moved to donate a little (and I guarantee a little will go a long way), we’ve started a GoFundMe account, which accepts donations large and small.

Help us out and spread the word. When we return to Cambodia next year, we’ll film a video thank you from Lily and share it with you. We’re also happy to collect materials from anyone wanting to donate, which we can deliver in 2020. Cambodia’s future generations thank you!