Khmer Cultural Development Institute

Our school gives free traditional Cambodian performing arts tuition to not only orphaned and blind children, but also poor children from local villages outside Kampot Town. They are too poor to hire transport and many of them do not own a bicycle. They really want to learn at our school and many of them are really talented. The arts offers not just an understanding of their cultural heritage but a valid form of vocational training in a country which uses music and the arts throughout society.

The war from 1975-79 decimated the Cambodian arts, with few masters of the traditional arts forms surviving the terrible period of the Khmer Rouge. Since 1994, KCDI has been working to revive and now protect and promote the traditional arts. This project now supports 400 primary school children, aged 7 - 12, from the surrounding communities to receive free quality tuition in the arts also as vocational training. Children from very disadvantaged backgrounds receive additional support. read updates from the field

This project will help up to 25 very vulnerable children (5-19 yrs) including blind children, living in the Province of Kampot, allowing them to receive full time residential care at our school, scholastic education, traditional Cambodian performing arts training, as therapy and vocational training. The children (except for the blind) have no parents, no extended families and have no alternative care except for our school;We work with the Kampot Department of Social Affairs. read updates from the field

Somnang is a little boy of six years old and lives at our school. His mother and father died from AIDS. Somnang has had level 3 HIV and although his health's improving he has Lymphoepithellal Cysts on his ear lobes, (a complication due to HIV). He urgently needs medical treatment in Phnom Penh 137 km away from our school. If left too long this complication can become malignant. read updates from the field