Hope all is well? Here in Cambodia, we spend a lot of time supporting children with their education by helping to shelter them, keep them healthy, supply them with school materials etc. and buy bikes so they can get to school. Unfortunately, some times, even if they are able to get to school, there is simply no school to go to.
This year we have pooled donations from K.I.D.S. donors, Healthy Role Models Nanaimo, Compassionate Eye Foundation Vancouver, Lush, The Ames family Foundation Vancouver and the Asker Norway Lions Club to build not one but two schools, with a solar-powered drinking water system on the floating school.
One school is in the brick factory area where K.I.D.S. sponsors many students. Wat Sela Primary School has 550 plus children attending daily and sadly there are hundreds more that cannot come because of a lack of classrooms to accommodate them. We started building Wat Sela in early December. The main structure of the school is built and the roof framing and roofing will soon be completed as well. Then it will be plastered, painted and finished around the end of February and be ready for students soon after.
The second is a floating middle school for the fishing village of Moat Klar on the Tonle Sap Lake. Due to the isolation and remoteness on the lake, there is simply no access to education for children once they finish grade 6. If their families have the resources to send their children away to study, which most families simply can't afford, their choices are few, go to work on the fishing grounds and or get married way too young.
There are thousands upon thousands of children on and around the lake in remote areas. The new floating middle school, grade 7 to 10, will be the first one on the lake and will allow the children from Moat Klar and nearby villages to have access to further education. We are also installing a clean drinking water project, on the school, to provide water to the students at the new school as well as the elementary school that K.I.D.S. built a few years ago.
Logistically both projects are challenging and thankfully we have the right contacts to make is all happen and skilled workers on both projects to complete them.
Building and launching the two steel scows for the floating school was one of the more challenging parts of both projects. They were welded and made entirely by hand with virtually no cranes or heavy equipment to help build or launch them. Have a look at the launch of one of the hulls at this link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqYIRjT4jJc&feature=em-share_video_user
Thank you to the many K.I.D.S. donors and foundations for providing the funding to build the space to allow a few hundred more children to attend school and improve health through access to clean drinking water.
Will keep you posted,
Until next time,
Rick and Adrianne