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	Our schools are built with local labor and with materials bought locally. The concrete foundation and poured concrete floor is raised above the customary flood plain with fill so they will stay dry during the rainy season. Each school has a large playground where we have planted shade trees. Boys and girls from first through sixth grade attend. Our first school was built in 2002 at Poum Steung, a farm village along both sides of a small river some 14 miles west of Siem Reap. Sarith’s brother Pran, who lived nearby, selected this site because it was the poorest village in the area. Children from that village had very poor school attendance. The nearest school was 5 km away, and across the highway traveled by heavy trucks going to and from Thailand. The village was strongly behind the project and it was completed on time and within budget (left).

Our schools are built with local labor and with materials bought locally. The concrete foundation and poured concrete floor is raised above the customary flood plain with fill so they will stay dry during the rainy season. Each school has a large playground where we have planted shade trees. Boys and girls from first through sixth grade attend.

Our first school was built in 2002 at Poum Steung, a farm village along both sides of a small river some 14 miles west of Siem Reap. Sarith’s brother Pran, who lived nearby, selected this site because it was the poorest village in the area. Children from that village had very poor school attendance. The nearest school was 5 km away, and across the highway traveled by heavy trucks going to and from Thailand. The village was strongly behind the project and it was completed on time and within budget (left).

Our second school is 45 miles north of Siem Reap, in a remote forested area 5 km. off the highway. This is a school for children of the Kouy tribal people. They are a separate ethnic group decimated by the Khmer Rouge. The government has given them this remote land and Kouy families are coming there from all over the country to build homes and start small farms. Meetings were held to discuss the new school with the Kouy mayor (right). A major concern was preserving the Kouy culture. We funded teacher training for several Kouy adults who now teach in their school. Again the project went well. As we did at Poum Steung, we also put in a village well. And, as with our first school, attendance has been outstanding. As a separate and impoverished minority, many of the Kouy children had not attended school before.

Our second school is 45 miles north of Siem Reap, in a remote forested area 5 km. off the highway. This is a school for children of the Kouy tribal people. They are a separate ethnic group decimated by the Khmer Rouge. The government has given them this remote land and Kouy families are coming there from all over the country to build homes and start small farms. Meetings were held to discuss the new school with the Kouy mayor (right). A major concern was preserving the Kouy culture. We funded teacher training for several Kouy adults who now teach in their school.

Again the project went well. As we did at Poum Steung, we also put in a village well. And, as with our first school, attendance has been outstanding. As a separate and impoverished minority, many of the Kouy children had not attended school before.

On the right are a few Kouy students who had never before owned a pen, leaning on their new school uniforms and checking out their school supplies.

	Our third school was enabled by an anonymous gift from a member of Resurrection Catholic Church in Rochester, MN. This was built in the Cambodian town near the Kouy school. The existing school was a crude structure with large holes in the roof that could not be used in the rainy season. Shortly after this school was finished, another new school was built right across the schoolyard from it by a European NGO. Now the children in this village of Srei Pou have two dry place to learn.

School

Our third school was enabled by an anonymous gift from a member of Resurrection Catholic Church in Rochester, MN. This was built in the Cambodian town near the Kouy school. The existing school was a crude structure with large holes in the roof that could not be used in the rainy season. Shortly after this school was finished, another new school was built right across the schoolyard from it by a European NGO. Now the children in this village of Srei Pou have two dry place to learn.

Soon after this, Sarith’s brother Pran became very ill and died. He had selected school sites and supervised construction for us. Our fourth school was built in his memory. It is in Sarith and Pran’s home village. Here you see the village welcoming Sarith at the school opening ceremony. The land for the school was donated by Sarith and Pran’s sister, who still works the family farm. We also put in a well and started a garden.

Soon after this, Sarith’s brother Pran became very ill and died. He had selected school sites and supervised construction for us. Our fourth school was built in his memory. It is in Sarith and Pran’s home village. Here you see the village welcoming Sarith at the school opening ceremony. The land for the school was donated by Sarith and Pran’s sister, who still works the family farm. We also put in a well and started a garden.

This school is built in the village of Tampoeung, 24 miles north of Siem Reap. It is built on land where Sarith’s family home once stood, burned down by the Khmer Rouge. It is satisfying to see this site be turned into a school, to help this village construct a building that expresses hope for the future on the ruins of their difficult past. Some of the palm trees that were on that land were planted by Sarith when he was a boy.

We also have adopted two schools. One of these is the original school in Tampoeung. With so many children now growing up in the village it is still heavily attended. We could hardly support just one of two schools in town, so we adopted this school and now supply students there with uniforms and school supplies every year.

In 2010 we adopted a second school in a small village close to this village. We did this in response to a plea from a teacher there who was married to one of our teachers in Tampoeung. Describing his school, he said, “We have nothing – can you help?” We could not say no to this and began to supply books, pens and school uniforms. Now, with the four schools we have built and the two we have adopted, we support a total of 1,500 elementary students every year.

We are now (at the end of 2011) finishing building our fifth school. This is a different kind of school from what we have built before, a technical school rather than an elementary school. Like our school in Sarith’s village, it came into being as a memorial. This technical school, JHP Skola, memorializes two remarkable people in the Czech Republic. This couple, Janka and Honza Pfeiffer, mentored boy and girl scouts decades ago, during the repressive communist regime in Czechia. Taking young scouts to their cabin in the hills, they provided a more complete and humanistic view of life, separately and secretly from the empty propaganda they were being taught in the public schools at that time. These former scouts, now in their 50’s, have funded the building of our 5th school to memorialize their beloved benefactors, the Janka Honza couple.

This school is being built in the town of Pouk, some 12 km. west of Siem Reap. It is a technical school for those who do not wish to go to high school. Students here can learn a trade that will allow them to open a small business in their village or find work in town. We will provide micro-loans for students who finish the course and wish to become entrepreneurs. In the evening, the school will serve as a dormitory for students from remote villages too far away to commute so they can attend high school in town.

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