Raing Te village is a small farming community in a poor part of Kampong Speu Province. Most of the children in this village attend government school, but the Village Chief was very keen to open a kindergarten to give the younger children some education and a safe environment for activity and play, while their parents are working in the fields.
Our school at Chbar Chros is quite close, but too far away for the smaller children to attend. When we were first asked to help this community, in 2010, there was an existing building on the site but it needed extensive work to make it usable, including raising the land level to stop it from flooding in the rainy season. It also needed repairs to the roof, walls and windows as well as repainting and other works.
CamKids has been funding the wages for the kindergarten teacher since Jan 2011 and we have now repaired the building, with the assistance of the villagers, who gave their labour and time to help to reduce the cost to CamKids and our donors. We have also provided furniture and supplies to start the school, along with toys for the children to play with, some of which were donated by parents at the International Schools and other organisations in Phnom Penh.
As well as providing a safe and stimulating environment for 24 children during the daytime, CamKids will begin teaching English to some 80 students, later this month. We will also be rolling out a number of our medical programmes, starting with our ‘Toothbrush Holder’ programme, to improve the dental health of the children.
