Year End Summary
It’s been another successful year for all of our Programs with a number of FIRSTS! Read on, please….
Two of our University Scholarship Program students have already graduated, and two more are set to graduate this winter. We have one new scholarship student this year, giving us a group of ten students going forward into the year. A group of visiting university students from the Department of Political Economics at the College of Idaho came to stay at Sre Prey, were impressed, and left a very generous donation to continue village projects. The eldest of our university students, Sit Math, has taken over some of the administrative work helping to manage the English and Cham projects in Sre Prey as a volunteer, thereby doubling our Cambodian based management team.
Sit Math – university senior
Free English Lessons for children continue and are still provided by our long time teacher, Kly Husen. Over 85 students attend regularly in the community school which villagers built and completed for these classes late last year.
As a first, we have arranged for a volunteer, Curtis West, a graduate student in Teaching English as a Second Language, to visit Sre Prey for several months beginning in January, bringing the children prolonged exposure to a native English speaker and giving Husen new teaching ideas. Everyone is eagerly awaiting his arrival.
Two angel donors contributed to give Curtis a free round trip ticket to Cambodia, saving him a major expense!
Curtis West
The Cham Literature Program which began late last year is going smoothly. A single teacher, Kok Math, is educating about 45 students in the classic script of the Cham’s own indigenous language. To the best of our knowledge, this is the ONLY program in the world carrying this unique knowledge forward. Leb Ke, the inventor of the Champa Type (a simplified computer based, writing form) strongly supports our work in maintaining the full knowledge of their 1600 year old written language.
Fund raising has never been easy but seems even harder this year. There are a seeming endless number of catastrophes happening in the world just now, extracting their toll in human misery; deciding where to give takes careful thought. The small number of individuals in ISIS and radical Islam have tainted the world’s view of the vast 1.6 BILLION Muslims who comprise 23% of this planet’s population. Moderate Islam (of whom the Imam Sann Cham are an excellent example) have been hurt far more than other peoples by the actions of these zealots. Furthermore it seems clear that only the moderate Islamic world will ever be capable of finally removing both the theological fire and the human fuel from them.
We believe that education and generosity are the keys – endorsing the positive aspects of a historically moderate culture along with accountably and efficiently helping young people obtain the skills needed to be effective in the twenty-first century. That is why we believe that investing time, energy and money here is worthwhile.
Join us today on this Giving Tuesday, and make a measurable difference in this world with a gift.
And did you know that just by purchasing products from Amazon’s SMILE website at www.smile.amazon.com/ch/45-3192724 we automatically receive 0.5% of what you spend at NO extra cost to you. Wouldn’t you rather the kids get those dollars rather than have Amazon keep them?
