Back to VDCA in 2014

The girls first time on a tuk tuk

I After the successful fundraiser on the Sunshine Coast, I decided to take the money over to Cambodia, buy new laptops and workshop the next round of students for the Skype Cultural Exchange Program. This time my family came along too, and Zara (9 years) and Isabella (5 years) viewed a world that they had never experienced nor knew existed.

We arrived to Siem Reap with little fuss and we were welcomed with opened arms by the VDCA director Togh Main and the staff at the Angkor Voyage Village Guesthouse. Interestingly, on our way from the airport, through downtown Siem Reap, I found myself savouring the greeting given by the streets, that familiar scent of South East Asia and the unique drum of traffic only found in this part of the world.

In front of the old market in Siem Reap

With Togh on our first visit to the school

The first day was spent acclimatising the kids to this ever so foreign place; Zara and Isabella gripped tight to our arms as we strolled through Siem Reap greeted by street hawkers, amputees and child beggars. The questions would come thick and fast and the look of astonishment was permanently plastered across their little faces. This was a complete educational experience that invaded and permeated every sense of their being.

girls playing in the foregrounds of the school

In the afternoon we made our way to the school. It was the first time for Cindy and the girls, and they found it a wonderfully humbling experience. The girls chimed in beautifully playing with the VDCA students in the school's foregrounds and participating in English classes while I discussed plans with the school's director Togh Main about the buying of new laptops, setting up the laptops so generously donated by Technology Effect, choosing the new students for the Skype Cultural Exchange Program and where we might best direct the remainder of the moneys from the fundraiser.

We spent the mornings of Day 2 and Day 3 showing the girls around the temples from the Angkor Period - Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom - before heading off to the school. We didn't go too hard at the temples, as even the most fascinated history buff can get 'templed out' very easily and become desensitised to the magnificence of these ancient structures by spending too long meandering amongst the ruins at one time. That said however, the girls were blown away and it was brilliant looking at these temples again, but this time through an inquisitive child's eyes!

Discussions with Zara at Angkor Wat

Birthday celebrations

Another two mornings were spent at the Floating Village - Kompong Phluk - and Aunlung Pi VDCA Rural Branch. Both experiences were mind-blowing for the girls and extremely moving for my wife Cindy. I have videoed and/or blogged about Kompong Phluk and Aunlung Pi in the past. The school's director and his family, VDCA teachers, Arina and Reaksa (two of the students from the first round of workshops last year) joined us on our trip to Kompong Phluk. It was a great way to spend the afternoon of my birthday!

Festivities and fun aside, both places are examples of impoverished lifestyles in Cambodia, where Cambodians are today living under similar conditions and state support as the times of Angkorian kings almost 1000 years ago; while the rest of the world progresses - even Burma, Cambodia continues to slumber in poverty and will not wake from this contemporary nightmare without ridding itself of its addiction to the drug of corruption.

The people of Kompong Phluk are locked into generational fishing using still the ancient netting and trapping methods of their ancestors past. It is blazingly obvious that technology and progress has not made its way to this part of Tonle Sap lake where these families exist. As you float through the canals, or stroll through the 'avenues' between primitive dwellings made possible by the lakes' recession in the winter months, you can't help but wish for an improved level of social support and basic governmental provisions. For example, people bath and launder in the lake near where their toilet contents are emptied. Also,  rubbish accumulates everywhere; once a product is consumed its wrappers or remains are discarded all around the community without any regard for hygiene or aesthetics. The only sign that this village is actually existing within the 21st century are the wrappers of modern consumables littered around and the odd motorcycle parked under the wooden stilts of some of the palm leaf walled huts. But still the children play! Games of volleyball were popular amongst teens as they unwound from their morning of fishing on the great lake. Education is surely only to primary level as these villagers do not see the need for a secondary or tertiary education for a life on the lake, a life that their father and his father before him lived with limited schooling. However, education is the key to 'progress' here. Without educated villagers, the knowledge of hygiene, improved fish yields using modern technology, and safer living conditions are lost to these people, let alone the opportunity for a life away from the lake if so desired.

Zara and Arina with local children at Kompong Phluk

Similarly, the people of Aunlung Pi, Siem Reap Province are simply existing within an impoverished state. It is clear that the Cambodian government has simply forgotten these citizens and they are left to the altruistic work of NGOs such as VDCA to provide their basic needs. Whilst many families of this area are subsistence farmers, they barely grow enough to constitute a nutritious diet. Therefore, the children in this area are representative of the country's majority malnourished youth. For more on this, read my prior blog on Aunlung Pi village. However, like Kompong Phluk, education through to secondary level is almost non-existent here. And education will be the saviour of these people if they are to move out of generational poverty. This is the mission of VDCA and they are doing a wonderful job supporting the people of Aunlung Pi to achieve this through their capacity building projects which are focused around education, not simple handouts.

Education in Cambodia is in a state of decay, consistently undermined by the institutional corruption that filters down from the government and infects all aspects of society, teachers are 'forced' to ask for bribes from their students in order for them to progress. Teachers are trained and paid poorly, and often only teach for a few hours per day because they must hold down another job in order to make ends meet. On top of this, bribery exists in all spheres of Cambodian society to the point that it is an accepted part of life. If you are to receive any form of governmental service, you must pay a bribe! Teachers and school principals are not exempt. Police are not exempt. Doctors are not exempt. Business transactions with government are mostly conducted through corruption and nepotism - if you can pay the greatest bribe, you stand to gain the most from all areas controlled by Cambodian government. Therefore, if Cambodia is to progress to the same level of its South-East Asian neighbours, it will need to clean up the corruption that restricts the aspirations of its citizens while privileging its ruling few.

Acclaimed Pulitzer Prize winning author and academic Joel Brinkley (2011) sums up the present state of Cambodian education in chapter eleven of his book 'Cambodia's Curse' where he writes, 'if education is the answer for Cambodian society, as so many experts assert, then the nation is lost. In a nationawide survey only 2.6 percent of Cambodia' schoolteachers said they were providing students "a high-quality education."' The book is described by Monash University Professor David Chandler as, 'saddening, sure-footed analysis of the way that power and corruption operate in Cambodian society today.' Throughout chapter eleven Brinkley gives poignabt anecdotal evidence on the corruption within Cambodia's egregious education system and offers further data on the institutionalisation of this corruption as a causal factor for Cambodia's poor education standards and the ongoing detrimental societal effects, 

Every day,  just before Chhith Sam Ath's two young sons headed out the door for elementary school, their mother gave each of them a wad of cash. As soon as they entered the classroom, they handed the teacher their money. So did all the other students, one by one. Children who didn't make the daily payments were likely to get bad grades. In some schools they were sent home or forced to stand in the corner until it was time to leave. 

Tens of thousands of poor families do not send their children to school because they simply cannot afford it to pay the bribes ... The International Labor Organization estimated that 38 percent of Cambodia's children between ages seven and fifteen worked at least part-time. "We can see them in restaurants, children selling things on the street. Pulling carts. Working in Brick factories. Picking trash at dumps," said Rong Chhum, president of the national teachers' union..."

The problem isn't just children who don't go to school. For those who do choose education, "you go to school and learn how to bribe people," said Chhith Sam Ath, a nonprofit association leader, shaking his head. Teachers, in turn, had to give some of their bribe money to their principals. "We are required to pay 2,500 riel, 5,000 riel," between 50 cents and $1.20, "to the principal at the end of the month," Rong Chhum said. Principals, in turn, had to pass some of that money up to the local Education Ministry office. An NGO study called that a "facilitation fee," required before the ministry would release salaries and other state funds for the schools... 

Because of the bribes, poverty, and other factors, 15 to 20 percent of the nation's five and six year olds never entered school... For those that did go to school, "the average class sizes are 75-80 student," the education minister said... "After the first year, already 10 percent of them drop out," said Teruo Jinnai, head of the UNESCO office in Phnom Penh. "And then 10 percent after that. And by the time they finish the 6th Grade, half of them are gone." Just under 13 percent go onto high school, and fewer still graduate. About 3 percent go onto college... In Dang Rung village in Pursat Province, village chief Kok Chuum said, "Fifty children entered first grade this year. Only two are in high school, and they will probably drop out after grade 9," when public education is no longer 'free'.

This is by no means an exhaustive assessment of the problems associated with the Cambodian education system. For more from the author visit his 2009 Foreign Affairs article - Cambodia's  Curse - Struggling to Shed the Khmer Rouge's Legacy. However, this does give the reader a glimpse of the challenges that young Cambodian students face. Additionally, it shows us that we have quite an extensive list of systemic challenges that will play a role in delivering the Skype Exchange Program successfully to Cambodian students. Therefore, we cannot measure results in terms of Australian educational outcomes, but in Cambodian; where any progress is positive change! With this in mind I ask all participants in the program to exercise patience and temper their expectations in light of these challenges. Now, back to the program...

We could only spare the best part of a week in Cambodia this time, so the evening workshops for the next round of Skype Cultural Exchange students had to be brief. I focussed mostly on basic computer literacy skills and then went into detail on email (Gmail), Skype and Google Slides/Docs (equivalent to learning Microsoft Powerpoint and Word, in which the students will have further tutorials with Mr Malivann - the teacher at VDCA overseeing computer classes now that they have laptops. The students began a presentation about their family on Google Slides in one of the sessions which they will continue for the following weeks until finished and share with their Skype partners for correction and discussion. This will aid in enhancing all four macro skills - Reading; Writing; Listening; and Speaking. Furthermore, I will be relying on Arina, one of the students from the first round of workshops last year, along with Mr Malivann, to give tutorials to the new students and help them through their learning. Arina has now graduated high school and is looking to get a scholarship to study psychology at university. She has also scored the highest in the school for English, which demonstrates how much the program has aided her. Additionally, her computer literacy and skills have grown dramatically over the year that she has been part of the program, which will benefit her greatly if she is successful in securing a university scholarship.

The new students are beautiful and wonderfully committed to learning new things. Despite the limited time, their personal challenges within the Cambodian context, they all grasped the basics and will be able to practise continually in the weeks ahead. At this point we already have three new Skype exchange partners from Australia that have made contact with the new students. Thanks for generously donating your time! From all accounts the initial interactions were laughter filled and a lot of fun! Here are the students after the final session, on our final evening at VDCA:

It was extremely gratifying to go to ANZ Royal Bank in Siem Reap with VDCA Director Togh Main to deposit the remaining funds from the fundraiser on the final day. Although one disappointment was the loss of money in transaction fees and exchange from Australian dollars to US Dollars - we lost 20c in every dollar! That said however, every dollar (US or Australian) goes much further in Cambodia than in their original place of minting, and over $10,000 Australian dollars is providing a much needed injection of funds into VDCA's numerous projects. And I'm sure that this money so graciously donated back in Australia will continue to aid this magnificent non-governmental organisation for months to come and provide opportunities for Cambodian people to move out of poverty in the future.

The remaining funds raised will be used in different areas at the direction of VDCA Director Togh Main. After buying new laptops and earphones for the Skype program, some of the funding will cover ongoing Internet costs for the VDCA Siem Reap school. Funding has also been used to provide two secured classrooms at VDCA Siem Reap. 

Additionally, funding will contribute to projects running at VDCA Aunlung Pi Branch where Togh and his wonderful staff are moving people out of poverty with their housing project amongst others projects - for more information on these projects go to my earlier blogs from 2013. VDCA has bought land at Aunlung Pi village to which it hopes to move the present village school in two years time. On top of this the land will contain further agrarian projects to feed the kindergarten children (one of the earlier projects), produce a source of income for VDCA from the sale of surplus produce and provide jobs and a steady source of income for some villagers working the fields. The land needs to be secured with fencing, so some of the funding may contribute to this also. 

One of the new secured classrooms

On a final note, I would like to say thank you to all those that have supported me, Togh Main and all the children at the Volunteer Development Children's Association. If you are interested in volunteering any of your time by Skyping with these wonderful Cambodian kids or donating towards keeping the program and other VDCA projects alive, please comment below or email me directly at rjoeslavo@gmail.com. 

Sad goodbyes, or should I say 'au revoirs' as Zara and Isabella made some beautiful friends among the students at VDCA. Who knows, maybe they will become the Skype Exchange students in future years!