wfn.org | FEATURE -- CAMBODIA -- A school for Saoren

[FRANK_IMHOFF.parti@ecunet.org (FRANK IMHOFF)]

LWF support in rebuilding the communities that make up a society

GENEVA, 14 September 1998 (lwi) - The little girl in the straw hat is
laughing at the white people who watch her water buffalos with mingled
respect and curiosity. She is leading the huge animals on a rope threaded
through their nostrils, and they do exactly what she wants. Saoren is
eleven years old and responsible for her family's and her neighbors' water
buffalos. All afternoon she has minded them at pasture; now that the sun is
setting, Saoren is bringing them home. For the time being, the animals have
little else to do than find enough to eat. However, once the rice is
planted they will have to go back to work.

For Saoren, her three younger brothers and sisters and her parents, who
live in the hamlet of Kruos near Battambang in Cambodia's northwest, these
times are not free from worry. In their house, bags of rice are still piled
up to the roof, but the appearance of wealth is deceptive: the last harvest
was bad, and this rice will last them only two more months. What are they
going to live on for the next three months until the new harvest? The
question is met with a shrug of the shoulders.

Like some 1,500 other people, (a fifth of the 239 families), Saoren's
family returned here only two years ago. Most of them had lived in refugee
camps in Thailand for the last nine or ten years, having fled from or been
driven away by the fighting between the Khmer Rouge and government troops
in this hotly disputed corner of northwest Cambodia. As recently as 1994,
the Khmer Rouge invaded the village and burnt everything down. Each family
has been given almost five acres of land by the government, but without
water and draft animals it amounts to little, in spite of its fertility. In
the rainy season everything turns green and grows, but the rest of the year
water for even such basic needs as drinking, washing and cooking must be
carried in from afar. Irrigation of the fields is thus impossible.

"The next thing we'll do is to build a canal from the river to here, then
we can irrigate the fields in the dry season and harvest twice," members of
the village Development Committee explain. Like nine other villages near
Battambang, Kruos is part of the Integrated Rural Development Project of
the Lutheran World Federation/World Service (LWF/WS). During the week, the
village community development worker, Peou Bopha Sokarika, lives with the
people here and returns only for the weekends to the provincial capital of
Battambang for staff meetings. "Of course, I know what is important for the
people here! They've elected the five men and four women of the Committee,
and now the Committee decides in what order to address the village's
problems. LWF helps only when the villagers cannot continue on their own."

The school is a good example. There is no room yet for Saoren and her three
younger sisters and brothers - nor for half of the about 600 children of
this and two neighboring villages. There are only two classrooms available
in the Buddhist pagoda, nowhere near enough, even with double sessions
every day. For this reason, the villagers decided that this was the most
pressing need - and that they themselves could get sand and other materials
for building a school. There was enough land available to build on. What
was lacking, however, was the know-how to put up a solid building with five
classrooms.

This is where the LWF stepped in. Apprentices from the construction
department of the Vocational Training Center in Battambang - another LWF/WS
project - thus embarked upon the practical part of their education in
Kruos. The villagers hauled water, sand, stones and wood and energetically
helped with the building. They also helped the apprentices build latrines
and learned something about tiling. "This will help them later to do repair
work themselves. And of course, the school will be much more their own than
if we had just handed it over ready-made," says Sokarika.

In addition, by establishing a village bank, the villagers have created a
fund for further activities. Every week for at least two months each of the
mostly female clients deposits a minimal amount and is then entitled to a
modest loan for an income-generating project. The LWF contributes as much
as USD 30 per depositor toward the minimal amount. Tien Huop, Saoren's
mother, has used her credit to buy chickens and asked Sokarika's advice
about the necessary vaccinations for the animals. Other women have bought
pigs, ducks or tools as well as material for weaving mats and for other
crafts.

How life changes owing to LWF support can be seen in a neighboring village
as well. Situated close to the main road but far away from the river, the
village set boring a well as a priority. The LWF well-boring team helped
with heavy machinery, and for a week the elected "water committee" went to
school in the Vocational Training Center in Battambang. They returned with
water pumps they had made themselves, which, if need be, they can repair on
their own. Since the pomp's installation, the incidence of diarrhea has
diminished, and in the little gardens pineapple, cabbage, tomatoes, onions
and other vegetables are growing. This not only improves the villagers'
nutrition but also enables them to finance further projects for community
development from sales of produce to persons passing through.

In a few weeks, the school in Kruos will be finished and handed over to the
government in accordance with the cooperation agreement between the LWF and
the ministry of education. However, whether little Saoren will be able to
attend is still not sure. So far her parents have not been in a position to
send Saoren to school, even if there were room.

There are no fees, but the parents have to take care of the teachers'
salaries in the form of a rice allowance. Fifty kilos of rice per year and
per child can be managed only when the harvest is abundant, something an
irrigation canal could assure through a second harvest. School uniforms are
a must, as are exercise books and writing materials. Even without the
teachers' rice allowance, it costs about DM 20 a year to send a child to
school in a Cambodian village - in a country where a family's average
income is about DM 25.

The LWF/WD pays the school fees of one-third of the 230 students in Kruos,
but many of the poorest have so far not even made an attempt to send their
children to school. "If someone helped us, if only until the irrigation
canal is built and allows us to earn some money..."

At present, the Lutheran World Federation/World Service is active through
the Integrated Rural Development Project in about 100 villages in five
provinces of Cambodia. For subsidies for school fees, about USD 2,000 is
needed. Donations are welcome under the reference "A School for Saoren".

(Editor's note: Regina Karasch , who wrote this article, works as a
journalist for the German National Committee of the Lutheran World
Federation - Main Board for Church Cooperation and World Service, in
Stuttgart, Germany. She visited Cambodia in February.)

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Lutheran World Information
Editorial Assistant: Janet Bond-Nash
E-mail: jbn@lutheranworld.org
http://www.lutheranworld.org/