HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Hello to all our donors and friends.

I would like to wish you all a very happy Christmas and New Year.

I have recently been in Cambodia and have much good news to report.
This has been a big year for us with the introduction of our scholarship program for tertiary education.

The program has produced great results so far and provides a new and exciting way for you to support our work. If you are not a donor yet please do go to our donations page and support our Tertiary Scholarship Fund with a donation of any size.

PLEASE DONATE – A SCHOLARSHIP OR A CONTRIBUTION TO OUR SCHOLARSHIP FUND.

TERTIARY SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM

Global organisations say that Cambodia has a critical need for well educated young people who have the professional and technical qualifications to meet the needs of the country’s growing economy – teachers, nurses, engineers, doctors, lawyers, administrators, technicians etc.

At this time we believe that supporting the tertiary education of disadvantaged rural students is the most important contribution we can make to the future of Cambodia, both in terms of economic growth and development of democracy in the country.

At the end of 2018 we set up a tertiary education scholarship fund to support our first group of students (who graduated from Grade 12 at the end of 2018), to go to university.
These students completed the first year of their degree courses in September and passed their exams. Since then they have all had part-time jobs, mostly related to their field of study, and utilising their improving English. They are returning to university this month.

All our Grade 12 students this year, who wanted to progress to university, have chosen the courses they want to do and have commenced the first year of their degree courses.

Some of our first year university students doing a small group workshop with one of our volunteers

After the first successful year of our tertiary scholarship program, our objective now is to extend the reach of our scholarship offering to a wider rural catchment area.

The new group of students have been selected on the basis of financial hardship, national exam results, interview, and report from the student’s high school principal.
They have just started the first year of their university degrees.

We have developed a comprehensive program for our students to compliment their university courses. The aim of the program is to assist our rural students to get the best possible outcome from their university experience, and prepare for life in the ‘real world’.
The program covers extra English and computers, leadership, communication, and other soft skills

Graduating from high school

SIEM REAP HIGH SCHOOL

Our high school students in Siem Reap continue to work hard and achieve good results. Two of our girls in Grade 12 have won outstanding student awards and we are just so proud of them. We provided them with scholarships to enable them to board at our Centre in Siem Reap and attend high school, and they have certainly made the most of their opportunity. They are wonderful young women with ambition and ability in spades.

Our award winners
First aid course for our senior students

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION

At our rural Centre we are now welcoming over 100 children per day to attend our free English and Computer classes. We also provide sporting activities and art classes.
These are all subjects and activities that are not provided at the local primary or secondary schools, or in the case of English, very poorly taught.. We also provide a free healthy lunch.

PRE-SCHOOL

Our class of 25 pre-schoolers turns up every day looking clean and shiny. Amazing when you see how they live – in the poorest conditions, often with only one parent, and parents and siblings who have never been to school. There is no clean water and yet their little uniforms always look well cared for.

The children really love all the colourful and fun learning equipment we now have, thanks to a generous donation from my sister, Essie Sullivan, who trained as a pre-school teacher and knows just what will appeal to our little students.

One of our small development projects, training villagers to grow vegetables, is proving to be very effective with bumper crops of beans, morning glory and other delicacies.

We produce enough to provide breakfast for our pre-schoolers.

Thank you to all our wonderful donors for your support over the last year. You are helping to enable all the activities you see in the photos and much else besides.

Your support helps these young people from seriously impoverished families to have a healthy and bright future.

Thank you also to our volunteers from a number of countries. Our high school and university students love the contribution you make to their studies.

If you would like to donate to our programs please click here DONATE

Remember every cent of your donation goes to the education and welfare of the children in Cambodia. Costs of admin, overseas travel, fund raising are privately and separately funded.
I wish you all a very happy Christmas and a wonderful year in 2020.

Carolyn Fletcher AM
Founder and Director