New School Year, New Hope!

School started again! Yay!! 

After a very challenging 2020 and not being able to go to school I think everyone has a newfound appreciation of something many of us took for granted. Schools are so much more than a simple place of learning. It is a place where children have fun and where they are introduced to new ideas, allowing them to dream bigger. 

For this new school year, there is a lot more pressure on poor families to send their children back to school again and we knew that there will be a spike of students dropping out of school.  With the support from our COVID-19 Relief Support program during last year, we are fortunate to report that 91% of our scholarship students have returned to school.   It is concerning as this compares to our less than 5% dropout rates in previous two years but this is the reality of COVID-19.

So, focusing on the positives, what are we doing to support the families? 
 
Firstly, we are continuing and expanding our core program, School For Life! This program remains imperative to everything we do by supporting individual students in a meaningful way. ​

Specifically, this means that we remove barriers that would prevent children to attend school by providing bicycles for basic mobility and also the provision of school supplies such as text books and uniforms. It may not seem much to us but for a poor family the cost associated with attending school can be a real deterrent. 
 
Once we get students to attend school it’s all about keeping them in there. What this comes down to is really the quality of education but also the ongoing support of the parents and the community. Whilst the latter is obvious, the quality of education can have a huge impact, in particular if students can’t afford the after school coaching classes which often causes them to fall behind academically and become very demotivated and frustrated. ​​

All of this we achieve for less than a $1 a day for a child to receive their scholarship!  
 
Of course, we don’t want to just select any student and family. The key principles are that the family can’t afford to send their children to school and both family and students have to be fully committed to education. ​

Since day one we have an assessment and selection framework in place that ensures that donations reach directly those children who need it the most.  What this looks like in practice is a family assessment of their income and financial situation, interviewing the families to determine their commitments to education and taking into account the teachers’ recommendations.  

But what do we mean by ‘financial situation’?  Good question!  This comes down to the basic questions such as if a government poor family card has been issued, having a cow, refrigerator, number of siblings, whether or not the parents are alive and working etc.   It is a very different world and sometimes hard to imagine if you haven’t experienced it yourself but that is exactly why we have an amazing local team doing the assessment and community outreach. ​

Of course, we are also mindful of the necessary work at a macro level and the impact we are making.  A great example is Chea Smonn Secondary school.  We have been working with them for four years now on teacher training, facility improvements and of course the student sponsorships.  The school initially struggled to attract enrolments but slowly and surely this is changing and we are seeing a significant uptick in students wanting to join this school.  Enrolments 2021 compared to 2017 are up an incredible 70%!  This is an amazing result which comes down to team work where donations are spent in a frugal but targeted way to improve schools but also teachers stepping up and actively working with us to push and influence as much as they can to motivate students. 

Positive and enduring change requires trust, providing real support and consistently building on success stories. Unlike a freshly painted classroom, it takes some time and patience to see the real impact but it is extremely satisfying and powerful once you set it in motion and for us to see how these beautiful students develop. 
 
We are therefore very pleased to see the continued growth of our School For Life program. For 2021 we aim to support 120 students and look forward to seeing more dreams come true! 
 
Check out how you can be part of the success of School For Life here: https://bit.ly/PS100Dreams202021  ​​​