This Life Cambodia

Siem Reap, Angkor, Kingdom of Cambodia
in partnership with ConCERT

This Life Cambodia's main goal is to help local people and groups become fully self-sustainable. The starting point is their belief that every child has the right to a free, high-quality education. They achieve the former through the latter by providing educational and training opportunities, securing project funding, building infrastructure, and creating networks of support. Over time, our needs-based support decreases as communities begin to operate independently.

Education enables children to develop the essential skills needed to make positive changes in their lives, and break free from poverty. Without an education, a child is immediately disadvantaged and far less likely to achieve their true potential.

The Mission of This Life Cambodia is..

To assist grassroots organisatons in developing projects in an ecologically sensitive and socially just manner;
To implement and coordinate community development and educational programs in various rural areas of Cambodia;
To facilitate people-centered learning through supporting community-based and individual educational programs with an emphasis on human rights, social and environmental issues

Where TLC Work

Cambodia’s bloody history has had a massive effect on the country’s infrastructure as well as on its citizens in very specific and personal ways. During the Khmer Rouge rule, Cambodia experienced a traumatic and unforgettable genocide that changed the country forever. Approximately 1.7 million people were killed in a little less than 4 years.

Thirty years later, Cambodia still struggles to provide basic education for its people. Literacy is a significant issue, with the majority of Cambodia’s illiterate population living in poverty in remote and rural areas. Without improving access and quality of affordable education, there is very little hope of Cambodia pulling itself out of poverty.

As with most free education systems, families are still responsible for school uniforms, notebooks, pens and pencils, and (in upper levels) course materials and exam papers. However, even these relatively small costs are too much for the average Cambodian family. Students also face lengthy travel times to nearby villages or towns where schools are located. And when they arrive to school after a hour or more of travel, Cambodia’s formal education system has inadequate facilities and large class sizes. It is a daunting experience for students and families from education cost and available resources to travel and ramshackle facilities.

Government salaries for teachers range from $30- $50 per month, and unofficial school fees are placed on students in order to supplement teachers earnings. For families who can afford it, this allows their children to study in smaller class groups— where the real teaching occurs. Students from poorer families are unable to attend these fee-paying classes.

TLC’s targeted programs are therefore aimed at such households in an attempt to overcome this inequity in access to education.

For more information please visit their website www.thislifecambodia.org