The rural schools Cambodia in the middle of open fields with dirt roads, no electricity or toilets are not an ideal learning environment. There is no other equipment but blackboard and chalk in the classrooms. Often there are not enough desks and benches for children to sit. The education is free and universal, yet each child has to have a uniform and school supplies to be able to attend. One realizes that education is a prized possession when one sees most children walking 3 km (about 2 miles) in each direction on an empty stomach. The children are tiny in stature and often look three years younger than they are. The school classrooms are crowded with three children to a desk and 60 children to a class.
Being in the crowded classroom in the midst of the heat, one feels truly stifled. Yet the attention of the students and their thirst for knowledge is astounding.
The children attend either a morning or afternoon sessions with the same teacher doing a double shift for the meager pay of less than $50 a month.
Cambodian Child's Dream is currently working in 4 village schools supplying school books and stationary as well as sponsoring 250 poor children. We provide Full Time English Teachers and supplement the income of the government Khmer Teachers. We have built libraries, kitchens, toilets blocks, playgrounds, sports fields, vegetable gardens, water wells, and Tippy Taps. We regularly bring in volunteers to teach English and provide new ideas and teacher training. We organize mobile school Dental clinics and volunteer Nursing Missions.
It costs $25 for a "starter kit" to provide a child with a school uniform, shoes, books, stationery, and toothbrush and toothpaste. An additional $10 per month will help provide breakfast for the child. Cost to educate a child for a year is $135.