Our Home is an orphanage and school for children who have been victims of deprivation, exploitation, and neglect. For these children, a good education is crucial to their chance of having a bright future. 80 children attend school
at Our Home, taking classes in Khmer and learning English and French.
Staff and volunteers are developing projects to become financially interdependent. There are three main projects going on at the moment:
- A local laundry that just opened the 20 of March near the school.
- A web designer company that helps local restaurants and guesthouses.
- A small pharmacy that will be ready to launch in a few months.
The incomes of these businesses will help Our Home in its day-a-day expenses, including teachers’ salaries, food, medicines, hygienic products and cleaning products within others.
However, at the moment the conditions of the school are not suitable for the kids. We would like to begin this new chapter in our organization´s development in the best way possible by renovating our school.
In order to improve the standards of the school there are some changes that must be done.
Even though some of the older children do try and keep the place clean and tidy on a day-to-day basis, we will like to do a professional deep clean to disinfect the place.
- Once the whole school is clean, we should paint the walls since most of them are dirty and the paint on them is peeling.
- To help the students concentrate better we propose to put doors on each classroom to help with soundproofing.
- Cambodia is hot. It would be nice to get one fan per class to give the children a better study environment.
- In Cambodian culture it is customary to take the shoes off when you get into a house. In order to respect the countries’ traditions they must be shoeless in the classrooms. Small shoe wardrobes will be nice to keep the place
tidy.
- Some of the classrooms do not have desks for the children and most of the ones that have are in really bad conditions. We are planning to buy new desks and reform the ones that are usable.
At the moment teachers are using whiteboards, which are hard to erase and clean. We will like to provide the classrooms with blackboards to make it easer for them. Also chalks are cheaper than markers, so it will help in the schools’
expenses.
There is no point of having all this if there is no one to teach the children. French and English teachers are volunteers. As Cambodia is a poor country, it is not that easy for Khmer teacher. Once the small businesses start
running we will be able to pay them a monthly salary. Until then, this campaign will contribute towards three teachers’ salaries for six months.
In Cambodia, as in many other parts of the world, a good education can be the crucial difference in a child’s life. Previous students at Our Home have been able to attend university and get jobs. Our Home needs help to ensure
that we can continue to educate these students and creating a high-quality learning environment.
