Siem Reap is a program located more than 300 kilometers away from Phnom Penh. PSE’s objective when opening a center in this region was to allow students to live in an area where finding work would be easy enough. The Center is also quite close from the villages of Prey Thom and Cotchock, both extremely poor and close to a dumpsite.”Everything started for the same reasons than in Phnom Penh, with the same needs: to educate the kids, to get them out of the misery they live in, to follow up these families”, explains Carlos the European coordinator of the program. For all these reasons, the center became essential to the area.
Siem Reap Central is not a camp like the others, as it is so far from the “heart” of PSE in Phnom Penh. All the issues that might come up and all the decisions that must be taken have to be found and solved independently. However, thanks to the great logistic part of the project – taken in charge by Ana Llinàs, a quick and efficient solution is found to any problem.
The instructors are also in charge of maintaining the buildings’ cleaness, and of buying and preparing the food. In addition, living together does not only concern European monitors but also Khmer monitors – including the distribution of daily household tasks. With the instructors from Aranh – Siem Reap paillote – these four weeks of School Continuity Program are an opportunity to become a big family.
We can see how much the kids need this camp”, Belén.
The day starts around 7 when the children start to arrive. Most of them come by walking as they live nearby the Center, within Siem Reap. To bring children from other neighbourhoods, a bus picks them up and drives them back every day. In total, nearly four hundred children come every day, divided into two groups: one in the morning and the other in the afternoon.
The monitors start by showering them and giving them breakfast: “We can see how much the children need this camp. Especially at the beginning, when you make sure they have eaten and are clean… It is fundamental to me”, says Belén, monitor for the second time. They are then ready to start the activities. They are different according to the days of the week: Mondays and Wednesdays are devoted to short activities that involve teams competing against each other, Tuesdays and Thursdays are dedicated to the Big Games, games in which all children and instructors participate, and finally, Fridays are reserved for the Olympics. More than just entertaining children, each of these activities aims to teach children something new: learning a few words of English vocabulary, for example.
Before continuing, children are given a snack, the goûter, that is almost always a fruit. Then the workshops begin. These are one-hour exercises designed to apply the concepts of emotional intelligence by first recognizing your feelings and emotions so they can be expressed. “Today, for example, we did a workshop on what they would like to do later, they could share it by drawing it, in the form of a play, mimes,…It is abouts saying loud what they want to become and for them to think a little about their future. Another time we cleaned up the camp together thanks to a play about how they should behave with regard to hygiene and cleaning, and then they all helped us. Next week we would like to work a little more on emotions, especially so that they know and recognize them. We thought of a series of activities with emoticons, that finally express emotions very well,” says Carlos.
Even if it means doing it all over again, there are children who have so much fun that they come back in the afternoon.
When the first group leaves after lunch, the second group arrives.The children have lunch and then take a nap. The activities are the same in the morning and afternoon and even if it means doing everything over again, there are children who have so much fun that they come back in the afternoon. At the end of the activities the children receive a snack again which they can take with them on their way back home. “It’s amazing to see the smiles of these children after participating in activities all day long, to see how they become children again for a while,” says Violeta, a first-year monitor.
All the instructors are fully dedicated to their project and that can be felt in the children’s happiness when they take part to any activity or when they leave the centre to go home. The monitors are here, giving their best so that these children can receive an education and see their lives improved. And, as Carlos says, “Even if you only change the lives of one or two children, it’s already worth it.”
PSE would like to thank Hydrosud for their economic support the project.
