Dear Friends and Supporters
I am writing to you at the end of another financial year in which our project has continued to support financially disadvantaged rural students to complete tertiary education – predominantly university degrees, but also tertiary vocational training.
We very much hope you will continue to support this very important and successful project.
I would like to place our project in some context.
Cambodia is still one of the poorest countries in our region, and it is widely acknowledged that the country has a critical need for professionally qualified and trained young people. Recognising this issue, Opportunity Cambodia has established a successful program to help address this need.
In the last quarter of the calendar year we advertise through the education system the availability of our scholarships. These scholarships enable very disadvantaged rural students to attend university and tertiary vocational training colleges in the city.
For many rural students the move from a rural village to a life in the city is a daunting challenge. Many such students who arrive with their dreams and ambitions, do not complete their degrees/training due to lack of funds, and appropriate support systems.
We have developed a very effective program which is designed to provide our scholarship students with those all important support systems – food and housing, health care, a community to belong to, education resources, coaching and mentoring. We are currently supporting 50 students some of whom will graduate later this year adding to our growing alumni.
Our students attend a wide range of degree courses including teaching, nursing, law, midwifery, finance and banking, engineering, marketing, IT. Most of these degrees are four years but classes are structured to enable students to have part time jobs.
Our first year university students stay in our Siem Reap ‘home away from home’ where they receive all the material and emotional support, guidance, coaching and mentoring that they might individually need to ensure they adjust to life in the city and do well in their exams. We also provide sporting activities, visits to Cambodian cultural and historical sites, and visits to potential employees such as clinics, hospitals, tourism businesses, banks, etc. The students manage the daily life in their ‘home’, learning to shop, cook, manage a household, manage money and time, and work in teams.
We enable students to move out of ‘home’ after their first or second year, and to share accommodation with fellow students. We cover their rent and assist with food and sundries according to each student’s ability to contribute. Their Siem Reap ‘home’, its resources and activities, are always available for them and we encourage them to come ‘home’ as often as they wish, and they do.
We have also been successful in placing students, who have successfully completed their first or second year at university, in part time employment. This latter program is a very positive and successful one as it really assists students to develop their confidence, greatly improve their English, and it helps ensure they are more than ready and qualified to gain good jobs after graduation.
I am really delighted to be writing to you with such a positive and encouraging report on our tertiary education program. I am sure you will be pleased that your generosity is really making an amazing difference to the lives of these wonderful young people who will go on to make a real and much needed contribution to the social and economic development of their country.
I very much hope you will continue to support Opportunity Cambodia and its tertiary education and training scholarship program.
My thanks and best wishes to you all.
Carolyn Fletcher
Founder and Director
carfletcher.c@gmail.com
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