Thank You for Building the Fence, Now Lets Talk Scholarships
June 16, 2009 - Chrauk Tiek, Cambodia
The ceremony was a success, we got our point across with a loudspeaker and a bunch of donated clothes. With many parents in attendance, it was an opportunity to encourage their participation in our program. Building a fence was the first act of community solidarity and participation led by the School Supporting Committee, so I made a big show of appreciation to all the volunteers who helped. The Chairman was quite proud, reading down the list of accomplishments the committee has contributed to the school. I presented him a watch, and each volunteer was called out, applauded and they were given first pick from the clothes. They were thrilled and I was amazed at the goodwill accomplished with the piles of sweatshirts and pants I collected from the lost and found at my son’s school. Clothing that is never even missed by our kids, is providing the only piece their children will wear day and night until they out grow it or it turns into unrecognizable soiled rags. The later is more likely.
The whole thing dragged on way too long with 300 kids sitting in the hot sun, but now that we had their parents attention, it was time explain the scholarship program.
Sam Sundoeun, our boarding house service partner from Phnom Penh said it best:
Do you want your children to work with their labor like you or to work with their brain? Education is the only way to change your life. But we cannot do it without you. To get to the top, we can only provide you the ladder, but the children need to climb by themselves, and the parents need to hold the ladder and push. We ask the community to make a commitment to volunteer their time to help support and sustain the primary school, so we can concentrate on providing scholarships for higher education.
Secondary Scholarships are focused to girls, the minority Souy children, and the talented students who drop out to work. High School and eventually University scholarships are available to boys or girls who make a commitment to come back and work in the village. The volunteer hours that each family contributes to the sustainability of the primary school will be scored on each scholarship application. So the more they contribute the better their child’s chance of earning a scholarship.
At the end of the meeting, 3 high school candidates came forward. One was a girl for the desperately poor neighboring village of Sre Charp. She is now studying 10th grade in a largely empty high school 30 kilometers away. She is good at math and science. She wants to be a doctor in her village.
An official from the provincial Ministry of Education was very impressed with our program. He said he could contact the World Food Program to bring a school breakfast to our school. Great. He said he never heard about this school but he can see that our approach works very well. He told everyone on stage that the most important thing is community participation and the honestly and transparency of the school director. I gave a sideways glance to the school director, whom I know is neither honest nor transparent. But it seems we have an opportunity to put pressure on him from above to straighten up.
Then, I turned to speak with the other visitors on the stage, representatives of the three nearby villages where we want to expand. They took this all in and are waiting for my visit. The biggest problem they each have is that the “teacher skips the class often”. Teacher absenteeism leads to student absenteeism. Later as I walked around these villages I meet family after family with kids who stopped studying after 3rd grade, 4th grade, 7th grade for this reason - the teacher absent to often.
Even a school breakfast is a higher level function compared to the very basic need to have teachers present in the classroom everyday. Why doesn’t the Cambodian Ministry of Education or world aid organizations get this? How would we feel if our children’s teachers were often absent?
