Near Battambang we visited the ‘La Maison de Coco‘ project.
This is a project run by an NGO to provide schooling and skills for the locals for free. It is funded by donations, and they also lease part of the site to the ‘French School’.
As well they have 10.5 hectares of rice paddies that they rent to local women. Payment from this is both in money and part of the rice harvest.
Our guide for the visit:
Schooling
The kids schooling part of the project really has three aims – to teach the kids language and maths skills, to make sure they have some decent food, and to give them basic life skills.
First room we visted was a kindergaten for 2 to 3 year olds, taught by an American volunteer.
The kids themselves are not bound by our normal strictures:
Steve gave one young girl a toy koala, but she quickly traded it for a sweet to an older boy:
The class rooms are a mix of painted walls, and lessons on whiteboards. Some of the details (despite the Americanisms) would do more than justice to ours.
By this time of the day, both Gerry and Annie were strung out without a caffeine fix, but Vuttha came to the rescue by doing a coffee run while we toured the classrooms. Local coffee runs similar to Vietnamese – condenced milk topped up with strong coffee.
As well as what we would consider ‘traditional schooling’, they also incorporate food growing skills. This involves both ‘soil based’ agriculture amd hydroponics.
There are also traditional skills such as sewing. Not only are these rooms used for teaching, but also provided as a resource for micro-business clothing enterprises.
And much to the obvious dismay of some of our group, they also provided a retail therapy outlet for goods produced by the students.