Educating 120 street-working children in Cambodia

It is hard to find good places where they serve children with disabilities in the area we are working in Siem Reap. If their parents send them to public school it is not good for them because there are 45-50 students in one classroom and only one teacher, and the teacher doesn’t have time at all to take care of a child with special needs. At Lotus Kids’ Club we do not have a special needs teacher but we found out that there are many students with special needs in the area who really need our help.

A few years ago we received a referral for a dear boy from our partner nonprofit. He had Down syndrome. At the beginning we were so afraid for him to join our preschool program because we did not have special needs teacher or any experience working with children with mental disabilities. We feared that there were would be many challenges for our teachers and the other students. However, we still decided to enter him into our program because we have love, care, and the best interest of children, and we want him to be part of our excellent preschool play-based curriculum. We are here for every child no matter what and no matter how hard. We know he has few options in town and needs our help. 

After getting him to our program, with us being new to him and him being new to our teachers, we did have a hard time and we found many challenges from our teachers when we conducted our monthly supervision. But after spending two years in our program he had improved a lot. His behavior, vocabulary and routine are the same as our other students. He really enjoyed coming to school with big smile to his teacher, saluted goodbye at the end of each day to teachers and loved playing the piano. We bought a secondhand piano for him to play with the other children.

In his third year with us, we realized that he was growing up and his behavior was getting more difficult to control. Our teachers did not have experience working with special needs children so had a hard time with him. We searched and found another NGO that is very close to his house and referred his family to their organization. We really did not want him to go; even though it was challenging we loved him being in our classroom. But we knew it was good for him, and this NGO had teachers with experience with working with children with disabilities.We made the right decision for him to go because when we did the follow-up we found out that he is doing well at school and he is improving a lot. 

There are still many children in the community with special needs who cannot find a school to go to. We currently have three special needs students enrolled in our preschool program. This time we have more experience working with these children. Both experienced western and local teachers have been coming to train our teachers regularly in how to work with children with special needs.

We see the smiles and the hope in their parents’ eyes, which motivates us to work harder for their children. We are now moving and growing forward to be able to provide education and support for all children, disabled and not. We do believe that this is the first class for special needs students with experience and beautiful hearts they have put for full of love and warmth.   We do believe that we are doing a very great thing for those children, and we always remind ourselves – “We are here for them,” “We are here for this community,” “If we do not do it, who will do it?” and “If we do not do it now, then when?” 

It has been more than 7 years of running Lotus Kids’ Club since November 2010. There have been so many changes that demonstrate the growth of our project. If we compare the beginning where we were, we can see that we are now so far from that. In 2010 we just started with 10 preschool students from several families in the Kamaki community, Cambodia where many children and their families were working on the street, collecting recyclables and those children were at high risk to be trafficked for labor or sex. We have accomplished so much since then, and now we have more than 100 families, 93 primary school students, 54 preschool students and 30 students on average coming to our Afternoon Community Program every school day.

We have been through so many concerns, challenges and pain but we have always given hope to those who need us, and we always stay beside them in any situation. It has been much hard work and commitment to these families and children we are serving but we really enjoy this work, and we want our new generation to change and build better lives for their future and community.

To celebrate how far we've come, we decided to host our first ever Christmas party for staff and the children two months ago. We have done many parties for Khmer New Year for staff, the children and their families but this time was a bit different because we had Christmas gifts for all staff and children who joined the Christmas party. We would like to say a mountain of thanks to our managing partner AIM (Agape International Mission) for their cash donation to buy 300 pairs of shoes, 300 sets of sport uniforms and all the food and drink for the party, which was very enjoyable and unforgettable for staff and the children.

We were very busy organizing and preparing for the party but the end result was so rewarding and unbelievable. 300 children joined the party and all had fun together, played games plus the end of the party everyone got food, drinks and gifts. It was such the great party for everyone. Also, it was a great time for our staff ito bond and get closer with each other. They expressed their feeling to the group with very big smile and happy face that showed from the bottom of their hearts about the first Christmas party. “Thanks for all this warmest party and gift, I love it so much,” said one staff member.

The story behind the big Christmas party happened while we were having a meeting with Mr. Don Brewster, AIM's Executive Director, in the beginning of December 2017. We were discussing our day to day operations at Lotus Kids’ Club, and then we were doing the updates what we are going to do in Christmas because many students asked for the party so we decided to do a small Christmas party for children with the $70 donation that we received from some visitors. Immediately, Don asked us to do a big one with many children, and AIM will support for the whole party. We are so thankful to Don and AIM. It was an unforgettable experience for staff and the children.