Through Communication, Trust & Solidarity Comes Breakthrough!
“We can’t depend upon the donor forever,” he said. “We must do this for our children and grand children and great grand children….forever….we must learn how to support the school ourselves.” OH MY GOD ….WHAT A STUNNING BREAKTHROUGH!
By Kari Grady Grossman
CHRAUK TIEK, CAMBODIA- My days are filled with the squeals of happy children and meetings with school supporting committees. So many people are supportive. It’s a striking contrast to the secondary school I visited yesterday where the school yard is treeless and dusty and no children play.
I met with a 16 member school committee, most of them illiterate women. The principle began the meeting by saying that he thinks “it is an exciting day, from today we can progress.” They are so incredibly excited to have the chance to work with us.
We used the beans again for each person to express their opinion on core values they identified as important to their success. Again, trust and honesty scored very low. We talked about why that is so. Our school director bravely stood up to admit openly the mistakes he has made in the past and how it undermines community trust. We talked about how courageous it is to admit when you are wrong. We laid out a road map of the 5 year process we will take to help the community sustain the school. The first step is developing trust. Interestingly, they also identified participation, communication and honesty as the way to build trust. These people are much smarter than the government gives them credit for.
Today, we discussed a power tiller. The school committee at our primary school has decided that purchasing a power tiller and renting it out is a small business they want to start to support the school. Everyone wants to rent the power tiller because it only takes a half day to plow a hectare, a task that normally takes several days by hand.
There are amazingly complex ramifications about how this program must be run and facilitating their thought process took most of the morning. I was truly amazed by a turn the discussion took when one man suggested that each family should contribute 500 riel to the school every month, and they could save that up to help support the school.
“We can’t depend upon the donor forever,” he said. “We must do this for our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren….forever….we must learn how to support the school ourselves.”
OH MY GOD ….WHAT A STUNNING BREAKTHROUGH!
The discussion continued as we explored several ways to reach our goal…..and everything comes down to those core values: Participation, Communication, Honesty, Trust, Solidarity. One man actually said, ”we were in the dark, and Kari brought us the lantern.”
I can’t believe how incredibly well this is going.
More tomorrow….. we have invited the whole community to a school dance. The sound system has just cranked up and it’s blasting Cambodian Love songs into the school yard outside my window.
Hundreds of people gather, and the kids have a fantastic time. They’d dance all night long if we let them. But we will have to cut it off early because tomorrow is a big day, the first ever community sanitation day. The whole school, school committee, Khmer teachers and 6 foreigners volunteering to teach English this week will all take to the streets in the village tomorrow and pick up all the damn garbage!
