Sovann Granted U.S. Visa
Chrauk Tiek, Cambodia
Rattana, the English teacher, walked around the village with me to get acquainted with her new home. Our happy little reality can be a little skewed at school and I want to see how the people in the 5 villages are living. Over a metal bridge from Chrauk Tiek, the place is called Spean Daik, the market town. People here have money, mostly from the illegal timber trade, to set up little shops and restaurants. Many of them are newcomers, a kind of logging boomtown mentality reigns. The snooker shop is the most popular place in town. We turn down the lane and walk through the loggers camp at the end of town. The forest destruction is incredible. In 2001, when I first came here, the lane twisted under a pristine jungle canopy. Now not one tree is left standing and the people live under miserable conditions, chopping logs and hauling water from the river, seven days a week under hot son. There are no more trees for shade.
On the other side of the logging camp is the old village of Ca Peou, and the people we originally came here to help. Souy mothers and grandmothers watch many dirty children running about, while the men are off in the fields or forests from dawn until dusk. The Human Rights Party sign draws me toward one home, and the family invites me in, anxious to discuss a problem that has them quite distressed.
Their 17-year-old son Sothea wants to go to high school very badly to continue to study. But there is no high school nearby. He is the first student from our school to complete and pass the grade 9 test. His mother asks me to help, she is illiterate but she tells me how he always works very hard reading books at home. The boys downcast eyes shoot up and smile when I ask him if he’d like to go study in Phnom Penh. Our friend Sam Sundoeun runs a boarding house on the outskirts of Phnom Penh specifically for the poor and gifted kids from the countryside. He accepts Sothea to come live at his place, where he will provide accommodations, food and use of the communal facility with the 35 other students he supports. I agree to a scholarship, paying an $80 bribery fee to the Phnom Penh school to allow him to register and $20 for a bicycle. His mother bows to me and calls me sister. Her son will be the first student from this village to go to high school.
I’ve given the school supporting committee their first challenge, in addition to setting a monthly meeting and administering the teacher attendance policy, I also want them to take care of Rattana. We pay her a salary of $120 per month, but the price of food in Chrauk Tiek is very high. The school committee needs to arrange community contributions, particularly from her English students families, of a can of rice, or fruit or vegetables per month. She is bringing a very important skill to this village and they need to treat her like a daughter.
In addition to teaching English she plans to teach them how to make bracelets wrapped with string that say SSI Ambassador for our contributors and supporters. Everyone is excited that they can make them and sell them for 2,000 riel (50 cents). I tell them no, we want to give them as a gift to anyone who contributes $100 for our school or for a scholarship.
Bun Vanna, our briquette production manager, asks me why I gave a scholarship to a boy whose parents are woodcutters. I tell him, “if we don’t want him to follow in his father’s footsteps, we have to give him an education to do something else”. This forest is being felled by ignorance.
On the way back to Phnom Penh, we stopped at a few more schools to discuss their interest in our briquette project, or other income generating ideas to help support their school.
At the Lia Lotus School, in the southern region of Kampong Speu Province, we made a demonstration to the teachers who were interested to find out more. They have coconut peel and rice husk aplenty to make them. They decided to keep a sample to show the commune chief and they will invite us back for a meeting to discuss forming a school supporting committee.
At Pum Cham Bey School, the school director shows me a broken roof, a flooded school yard, and a decapitated kindergarten room. He has a strong school committee and they have actually built and maintained their 3 buildings and 10 teachers on their own. They would like to start a micro-loan program in this village and use the profits from interest collected to start a community fund for school repairs and for medical emergencies for the poor villagers who cannot pay transport to the doctor.
It is amazing to see the difference in capacity in a village like this, surrounded by huge rice fields, that has a little higher economic standing and a higher standard of living. I am interested to hear more about their micro-loan scheme and other income-generation ideas. If they can increase their 5-member school support committee to 12 and include 5 women, they can make a proposal to us after Sovann has had his community mobilization training in the U.S.
Back in Phnom Penh, we visit the American Embassy and guess what - SOVANN GOT HIS VISA!!
One small problem is price of the flight has increased to $1,677. We had only budgeted $1,200, so if anyone would like to contribute, we are $477 shy.
