By Laurel Jansury | Grants Administrator
Over the past three months, the initial stages of the Conditional Cash Payments (CCP) program in the Angkor Thom district of Siem Reap have gotten underway for the new school year which started in November.
The committees who administer the CCP in their communities collected monthly student attendance records from the schools. They also followed up with families to ensure that a proportion of the first disbursement of funds had been spent on the school materials they had discussed with them.
According to the monthly records, the average attendance of CCP supported children in the first three months of the school year was 95% which is well above SeeBeyondBorders' target of 80%.
Helping Sophea get to school
One of the children who benefits from the CCP program in Angkor Thom is Sophea*. Sophea's parents are divorced and her father provides no financial support for the family. Her mother works 10 hours a day cleaning at a petrol station in Siem Reap city, earning just $120 per month. She works far from home and is only able to return once a month to visit Sophea.
Sophea and her mother were forced to leave their own house when her father left, and they now live with Sophea's grandmother. Sophea is alone every afternoon when she comes home from school because her mother is working away and her grandmother works in the forest every day, collecting wood.
SeeBeyondBorders provided financial support to the family through the CCP program to help with Sophea's school expenses, including uniforms and books. When she received the grant, Sophea's mother signed an agreement with a number of conditions, including that Sophea would attend school regularly.
Prior to her involvement in the CCP program, Sophea was missing a significant amount of school and falling behind in her school work. Sophea's absence rate was 11%. It is now zero! In addition her test scores have improved and she is now ranked 5th out of 19 students in her class.
Change Begins With Education
*Not her real name
By Colm Byrne | Director of Development
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