Communities educating the next generation

This has been my favorite start to the Cambodian school year yet! When I began working with the Samaritan’s Purse education team I had no idea how schools worked in Cambodia. It was a whole new learning experience for me. Two and a half years later after a lot of hard work and lots of help from people from Cambodia, Australia, New Zealand and America we’re able to work alongside communities and the Ministry of Education in improving the quality of education.

Let the parade begin!

The reason this year is my favorite is because I’ve had the opportunity to enjoy being part of activities led by communities, encouraging children to excel in school. In one community last week I was part of an enrolment campaign. This was no ordinary campaign. We had 17 iron buffalos (rice tractors), loaded down with dozens of students, musicians and community leaders, parading through 4 villages encouraging families to enroll their children in school. There was traditional music and dancing with encouraging messages about attending school. In another village, where Samaritan’s Purse recently constructed a new primary school, the community made neckties for every child in the primary school. The community wanted the children to value education and dream for the future. They made the neckties to symbolize the success students will enjoy if they finish their education.

I’m also excited because Samaritan’s Purse will be implementing education projects in a number of schools, helping children learn to read and write in their own language and empowering community leaders with tools to better manage the school system. These projects are the result of experiments with tablets, mobile apps created by organizations like World Education, hard work by Samaritan’s Purse staff and Education Symposiums with Cambodian government officials, Australian/New Zealand educators and Samaritan’s  Purse staff. 

We Can Read We Can Write Campaign!

From all of those experiments and ideas from symposiums the ones that look the most promising are those that capitalize on the values and resources of the village community.  In my learning journey I’ve realized that the most valuable resources are not those that come from foreigners from developed countries. While those resources are helpful, the most important resources are already in communities.  Whether it’s been from my teaching experience in the US or my time here in Cambodia there are some things I’ve found to be true.

•        Children have dreams for their future!
•        Parents have dreams for their children!
•        Communities want the best for the families of the community.
•        Every community has valuable resources to make children’s and parent’s dreams a reality.
•        Resources and assistance from the outside are valuable IF they align with community values and resources, but are worthless if they do not.

Village Chief on the right is watching me closely (and laughing),
making sure I don't have a wreck

Taking a break to play Rock, Paper, Scissors

I’m having the time of my life because the projects I’m involved in are serving communities who are learning to use their available resources to recognize their  dreams. While it may sound counterintuitive when you are trying to see communities transformed, servanthood is the best model. 

Jesus’ model of servant leadership applies in every corner in society. Just glad to be serving Him in this capacity in Cambodia!