History
In the 1970s, Cambodia’s brutal Khmer Rogue regime contributed to the mass extermination of two million people including intellectuals, thereby completely destroying education in the country. The country was left with nothing. Over time, Cambodia has been slowly developing again. Presently, it seems everything is back to normal, and a large number of schools have opened and continued to open.
Unfortunately, many of them do not provide appropriate progression to gain a better start in life for certain children. Problems mainly involve all disabled children, such as children with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). These children are very sensitive, shy, and struggle in other areas, especially the ability to communicate and relate to others. However, they also have a unique set of skills, so they sometimes test in the average or above average range.
Additionally, children with intellectual disabilities have less ability than normal children of their ages and often struggle in a regular classroom. Teachers, parents and community’s members in small villages of Cambodia are not trained or educated on these disorders, and schools are not properly equipped. These children are rejected, forgotten and abandoned from their local communities and forced to stay at home without an opportunity for any education.
Additional Problems
-A need for qualified staff (teachers, speech therapists, psychologists ) as the quality of education is very poor in Cambodia, especially in this province.
-A lack of basic classroom equipment, such as teaching aids.
-Communication between teachers, the local communities, and parents does not exist, so there is no participation and involvement in the school.
-Lack of extracurricular activities, such as art classes, dance classes, and musical classes. These all help to develop students’ skills and interests.
-Mixed classes for students aged 4-12 with frequently 50 students in a classroom makes following a lesson plan difficult to manage. Children require different instruction at different ages, and teachers are not able to dedicate equal attention for all students.
Solutions
As a result, we are beginning to work around a new project, our integrated model of education. This means that the all students are welcome and all students learn and participate together with the same benefits:
-develop individual strengths and gifts (ASD children);
-work on individual goals with individual programs (Children with Intellectual Disabilities/ASD children);
-involve their parents in their education;
-develop friendships given their unique individual needs and abilities;
-provide training for local teaching staff as a complement to their current knowledge
-Send the disabilities students to the doctor to check their health.
Therefore, we are building A SCHOOL FOR ALL CHILDREN. You can help! In order for Cambodian children to get well paid jobs and progress out of poverty, they need a good education that provides an opportunity to learn English.
Our School
The headquarters of our project is ASEAN INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH SCHOOL (www.aseanschool.info), with branches in two districts of Takeo province. Currently, we have 300 students occupying a building. These circumstances are far from ideal and are negatively affecting the outcomes of our students. Collectively with local teaching staff, we have built the school in middle of rice field which is surrounding by the villages. But we still need to build the special for medical class. Therefore, there are a lot of children has got many different kind of sicknesses such as Genetic and Parasite. If we have the medical class in our school we will have the test to all children at least once or twice a week. All aspects of our project increase the chance for all children to gain a better future. This school will provide enhanced teacher training and will be a comfortable space to allow for quality education.
How can you help?
There are many ways that you can help us and you can be part of our project, depending on how much time you have to donate.
Frankly, we need everything, and we need everyone. If you have time to share same ideas, passions and talents to help the students – join us as a volunteer and live and eat at the school with local teachers.
For those who do not have time and are not able to join us physically but would still like to help, financial support is always welcome. All donations are spend on a particular purpose, are saved in our records, and the impact will be shared with our supporters.
Thank you for your time in reading this. Please join us by donating to our project and building a bright future for these children who need our help!