Be the Change Network

“They saw the vastness of the world for the first time.  The students got a new view, and with it, their dreams grew bigger.”

By Kari Grady Grossman

When I picked up the scholarship students at the boarding house on the outskirts of Phnom Penh,  I was met with big bright smiles.  These 6 bright faces, who one year ago had been shy and completely destitute, were now brave enough to practice their English on me.

One of our brightest kids, Sokea, said, “Before I have scholarship I was destitute, but now after I take attitude forum class, I have hope.”  His smile widened.  He wants to study agriculture and rural development.

Saram, the Souy girl, who is our youngest scholarship student, is attending 8th grade at the secondary school. Last year she couldn’t even say “hello” and she had never been beyond her village.  Now she trys to speak English a little and is studying to become a Khmer teacher.   She is destined to become the first Souy minority girl to ever go to high school.

And Sarim, the Souy boy on scholarship, wants to be a math teacher.

So Phally, an 11th grader, wants to be a medical doctor in the village.  Her brother So Theary, also grade 11, wants to be an engineer.

And Sem Kong, our only college student, is the oldest and the leader of the pack.  He wants to be an English and Computer teacher.

One year ago they had no idea what they wanted to be.

Now they can dream.

We loaded them all up in a tuk tuk and met with the principle at the high school, to make sure they were on track to graduate with the necessary courses to pursue their dreams.  I could not be more proud of them.

With all 8 of us piled in a tuk tuk we went out for a night on the town.  We stopped for dinner at my favorite clay pot place, where the food is served raw in big piles of meat and vegetables.  You cook it yourself in the soup pot at the middle of the table. The kids thoroughly enjoyed gorging themselves on “big food.”  They liked the soup better than pizza.

Then we took them to the Sorya shopping center, which is a newly built vertical mall.   Riding escalators was like an amusement park thrill ride.   At the top of the 10-story building,  we stepped outside the top-floor restaurant to the oberservation deck overlooking the city.  The kids were in awe.   The stared wide eyed.  They gaped at the tiny cars and people.  They saw the vastness of the world for the first time.  The students got a new view, and with it, their dreams grew bigger.

Wait till you hear what we are going to do next with our scholarship program!

I am leaving for Chrauk Tiek village today and will write as often as our internet connection allows.  Great things are happening there too!   We are being noticed by the government as the #1 school within the province.There is high demand to attend what is normally considered a poor, dysfunctional rural school, yet the education one can receive at the Grady Grossman School is better than what is available in Phnom Pehn. And the best part is…it was all done by the local people.

By Kari Grady Grossman

When you’re the director of a humanitarian organization in Cambodia just about everyone you meet asks you for a job. There aren’t many good jobs in this town, but when I tell them our positions require living in the rural village and working with marginalized and desperately poor people (even by Cambodian standards) our prospect loses its appeal. We only have one staff in Phnom Penh, everyone else works in the village.

But every once in a while I meet someone who gets it.

Pen Vibol appears to be such a person. A middle aged man in his early fifties, he’s looking for a new job. He hands me his name card - Seminary Institute of Religion, Church a Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, coordinator. He’s not a Mormon, he just organizes their scholarship program here in the city. Everyone focuses their education efforts in the city hence the city grows, the real education problem is in the rural villages where nothing ever changes. You’re right, he says.

They don’t need to build more schools until they figure out how to run the ones they have. Vibol agrees.

I recently read a UNESO report entitled “Reaching the Marginalized” a review of education efforts in developing countries around the globe. It’s a pretty complicated analysis of what works and doesn’t work in helping marginalized people gain access to education. In my experience there is one way to “reach the marginalized,” simply reach out to them. That means live with them, talk with them, and know them. It’s not that complicated, it just takes a willingness to be in community with them. It’s hard to do from an air-conditioned office in Phnom Penh or a Land cruiser. It takes very special people to love the poor the way our education officer Paul Chuk does. We are working on a training system to teach new education officers and build our capacity to expand into the secondary school. The job is not for everyone. It takes a person with the right personality.

Pen Vibol has a typical Cambodian story. During high school in the 1970’s, when the Khmer Rouge regime took over, his parents were killed and he was arrested for speaking French. When the militants shoved a book in his hand, he faked illiteracy by turning the book upside down and acting stupid. They blind-folded and shot him anyway but the bullet missed his head. Afterward, while living in an orphanage, the communists sent him to Russia to study locomotive engineering. He spent the 80’s in Leningrad and speaks Russian fluently. Can you imagine a half starved Cambodian kid living in Leningrad for 11 years? Sent back to Cambodia in 1993 to work on a unfunded train system, he found himself jobless most of the 90’s and got by as a motto driver. Nowadays, he tows the line of the Latter Day Saint. He’s got the universal Cambodian survival skill - whatever it takes.

Vibol told me that in Russia teachers who choose to go teach in rural areas of the cold north are paid more; those who choose to live in the warm south are paid less. Teachers can decide what is more important to them, lifestyle or money. If Cambodia really wants to change the education access of the rural poor, the answer is quite simple: Pay the Teachers More! I wonder if UNESCO took the money they paid PHD’s to offer their analysis and simply paid a group of teachers more, would find an their answer to “reaching the marginalized?” Maybe they don’t really want to reach the marginalized, maybe it’s more interesting to study the problem than fix it.

A middle aged man who speaks, Khmer, French, Russian and English, who understands the importance of paying teachers to do a difficult job and the personal sacrifice of teaching the marginalized. Vibol may just be the perfect person to train with Paul and learn how to be an education officer at the secondary school we want to expand into. Who is going to help me pay him what he deserves?UNESCO?

Thanks to Jill Hunter of Lander, Wyoming, the school now has playground equipment for the students.  In this weekly letter to Kari, Paul Chuk, who teaches English at the school and works with the School Sustaining Committee, wrote about Jill, Jenna and Justine’s visit to the school.  Jill recruited ten sponsors during the first annual campaign.  She hosted a fundraiser with Amanda Prom for the school on January 24th at the restaurant she operates in Lander.

Jill, Jenna and Justine are great guests and easy to please. They are amazing people who have shown great interest in our school.  Jill was here in 2005.  What a difference since she’s was here a few years ago she said.  She also said that there are many changes from inside the school ground to inside classrooms to the way students reacted.  They were thrilled to see our students speak some English.  They were impressed to hear our students sing ABCs, Old Mac Donald, and If You’re Happy songs.

The children love all the playground equipment.  They especially love to ride on the merry go round.  Beside the playground equipment, our special guests bought us a set of badminton, a soccer ball, two small balls, and a volley ball. They also gave us $40 to buy the uniforms for our me’sn basket ball team since they are number one in the district and need to move on to compete in the province level.  We are grateful to all of them for helping us.

By Sok Khemara, Voice Of America Khmer
Washington, 20 January 2010

Poor families in poor health, the loss of land and the legacy of war are all contributing to a child labor problem in Cambodia, the country’s national International Labor Organization coordinator said Monday.

“The latest studies we have show that in many countries, if there exists child labor, that country is in heavy poverty,” said the coordinator, Chhorvirith Theng, as a guest on “Hello VOA.” “In a country where educational development exists, that country has no child labor. So on both these tendencies, the government of Cambodia is paying attention. For instance, we take education as a core sector.”

The government and private sector are working to jointly eliminate child labor in Cambodia by 2015, Chhorvirith Theng said, through plans to educate people at the grassroots level, as well as vocational and skills training and microfinance.

A national survey in 2001 found 1.5 million children aged 5 to 17 who were economically active in Cambodia. Around 250,000 were working in risky occupations.

Child labor is not only a problem in Cambodia, but around the world, Chhorvirith Theng said. The ILO estimates as many as 250 million children involved in labor, with the majority involved in dangerous jobs that can be damaging physically, mentally and spiritually.

The Cambodian government is scrambling to balance its budget. The latest news is to cut 50% of all the salary for every serviceman and woman. Teachers’ salary across the nation is affected as well. For our school, they want us to eliminate 2 classrooms by combining the 1stgrade to two classes and the 2nd grade to one class. Here are all the details: Before the budget cut, SSI had: · 3 classrooms for the first grade with 46 to 47 students per class · 2 classrooms for the second grade with 45 to 46 students per class · 1 classroom for the third grade with 61 students · 1 classroom for the fourth grade with 44 students · 1 classroom for the fifth grade with 40 students · 1 classroom for the sixth grade with 48 students After the budget cut, SSI now has: · 2 classrooms for the first grade with 70 students per class · 1 classroom for the second grade with 91 students · The rest, which is from the third to sixth grade, remains unchanged So far, we ended up eliminating 2 classes to meet the requirement that the government suggested. By doing this, SSI teachers get paid less. As a result, the government saves money, we lose money. They told Bun during the meeting, that they no longer care about the quality of education that the children have. All they care about is saving money. I was shocked, angry, and frustrated to hear the insulting comments they made. Can you imagine if you were a teacher attempting to manage a classroom that size? There are up to 90 students in each classroom!  This is unbelievable! By Education Officer Paul Chuk