Fundraising for Dolphin School of English, Cambodia
Donation protected
For 3 weeks I’m volunteering at Dolphin School of English, Kratie, Cambodia, helping teach vulnerable and underprivileged children and adults English. The school is based in a very rural area of Cambodia, near the Mekong river in the north eastern part of the country and has one of the lowest English literacy rates in the country. In the public schools of Kratie, students aren’t taught much English.
The school's director, Mr. Yuth, has lived in this area for several years, and over time has watched children grow up with little or no English, and had a dream to enable them to learn English and gain some basic IT skills, which will give them better job prospects and a brighter future. After saving for over 10 years, in 2016 his ambition came to light. Mr. Yuth opened the School, built a house for the volunteers and started lessons for children from surrounding villages. Having already been here for one week, his immense passion and dedication he has for the children of Cambodia to have the opportunity to learn English, really stands out. Initially, he had fewer than 10 children coming to the school, and now has around 120 making 9 classes plus a couple of adult classes in the evening. As a result of the higher number of students, he has to pay for English speaking Khmer teachers to enable these lessons to go ahead, supported by much needed volunteers. The ‘richer’ families in the area pay a small fee, whereas the poorer families continue to get the education for free. However, these fees are used just to cover paying for the teachers each month. The school receives no financial support from the Government and instead relies solely on donations for improvements and volunteers for teaching. In a conversation the other day he highlighted the importance of quality not quantity, and therefore won’t be taking on any more children for the foreseeable future, but has further ideas and hopes to be able to expand the school, building more classrooms and facilities giving the same opportunity to more children in the area.
Since the school receives no funding, money raised through volunteers contributes to improving the facilities of the school. Currently, there are 2 toilets for over 120 students, with no hand washing area. This, basic hygiene, is something we take for granted in our lives and he is very keen to expand and improve this. Even bins, for example, are expensive to buy out here, and whilst the other volunteer and I at the moment are trying to see what we can re-use to create small bins for each classroom, something like this would definitely make a difference to the school, keeping it a cleaner place. The children love to learn to use computers and to gain IT skills which could be very useful in getting a job when they are older, but they only have one working laptop in the school at this time, and very expensive for them to buy more. Only a couple of times a year can he afford to provide a meal to all the students, which would cost around £50 but again, for them this is a considerable amount of money. The library in the school has some books, games, a football and skipping ropes which are all donations from volunteers/friends/family from other countries. Many other basic necessities that we are privileged to have in schools in England, such as a safe drinking water station, sports equipment, computers and something as simple as coloured pencils, would make such a huge difference and positive impact to the school. These are some of the things money fundraised would contribute to. It would cost around £200 to build a playground, £475 to pay for one teacher for the year and £80 to build a new roof for the library. With most of the students coming from very disadvantaged families, they struggle to even afford to pay for textbooks or pens - £40 could provide essential books and supplies enabling them to fulfil their potential at Dolphin school. This is also a happy, safe space and environment for them to come to learn and play. The children here love learning English, and always want to speak and practice with you, coming here in their free time for the lessons, after a full day at public school. If you have any spare change you are willing to donate to help improve the current school for the students, giving the opportunity for more children in the area to have free English lessons and positively change their future, I can assure you they will be most grateful . Even a couple of £ here it goes a very long way. Finally, if you are coming to Cambodia or think this is something you would ever like to do in the future, they are always looking for volunteers. Thank you in advance for any donations and also for taking your time to read this :)
Organizer
Katie ONeill
Organizer
England