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Thanks to funding from local charity ‘Guernsey Aid’ as many as 100 children in the remote jungle village of Chak Chap in NE Cambodia now have access to a formal education for the very first time.
The children belong to the Tampuan ethnic minority tribe and their nearest school had previously been so far away that it was impossible for them to reach it each day. Working with in-country partner, United World Schools, Guernsey Aid has provided the funds for a brand new primary school to be built in the village. In addition to the classrooms, the grant has also covered the cost of a gender specific toilet block, a library, a solar powered well and separate teacher accommodation. The government have agreed to meet the ongoing staffing and running costs but the catchment area is so large and the demand so great that an extra classroom is likely to be needed by the end of the year.
Guernsey Aid works with trusted partners in the least developed countries of the world to support sustainable projects that address basic needs such as health, education, water, sanitation and hygiene. Committee members Nick and Claudine Paluch have just returned from a self-funded trip to visit the school and other projects supported by the charity in Cambodia and they were very impressed with what they saw:
“It took us 8 hours in a bus and another 3 hours on rough unmade roads to reach Chak Chap village but when we arrived we were given a tremendous welcome by the village Chief, the members of the School Support Committee and of course the children who were busy with their lessons but who were happy to have a break to say hello to us. It was really inspiring for us to see how enthusiastic they all were to learn and how grateful they were just to have been given the opportunity to go to school, something we very much take for granted in the developed world.
One of the things that touched us most was the fact that the children’s parents, who had never had the same opportunity when they were young, had arranged with the teacher to have adult literacy classes themselves. Those classes have to take place after dark when work has finished in the fields and so Guernsey Aid has agreed to provide some additional solar panels to ensure that they have adequate lighting. It was amazing for us to see how well the charities money has been spent and what a difference it is already making to the lives of everyone in the village particularly the children for whom it offers nothing less than a better chance in life and a way out of poverty”
Further information about the work of Guernsey Aid is available on our website www.guernseyaid.org particularly the Annual Reports for 2021 and 2022 which can be found under the heading ‘News updates’. The photos can be forwarded as separate jpegs on request.
Nick and Claudine Paluch. Contact 07781-193929 / 264242 / paluch@cwgsy.net
