Education for 300 Urban Poor Children

Yat was born on April 26^th, 2011, in Kamrieng village, Sena Reach Otdam commune, Preah Sdach district. Now he is 14 years old, and he is studying in the 8^th Grade at Krosang Char Secondary School. He has three brothers named Theara, Vireak and Yong and a sister named Nary. He is the youngest child in the family. He lives with his aunt in a narrow and small house with a zinc roof and wall because his brothers and sister got married and lived separately. His father died for a long time ago, and his mother got married with a new husband. His mother abandoned the family and the children. His aunt is a member of the community leader who gets a salary of about $25 per month.

According to a meeting with Yat on June4^th, 2025, he shared the consequences and challenges of his studying and living in a poor family with his aunt. His aunt has high blood pressure, cannot walk and work, but she still gets monthly salary from the government to support the family’s living and nephew's education.Therefore, Yat had to take care of his aunt and did all the housework in the family so that he could not attend school regularly and did not have enough time to study both at school and home at that time. He often missed school, and his studies also were not good. According to the difficulty of the family’s living situation, he planned to drop out of school many times in Grade 7 to find a job and earn income to support the family and his aunt’s medicines because he did not have enough time to take care of his aunt when he was studying. “…at that time, I was so sad to decide to drop out of my school in Grade 7 because I would love to continue my studies in higher Grade and I would love to be a police officer in the future. It was not my choice to drop out of school, but it was a real time for me to decide in this hard situation…”, said Yat sadly.

Fortunately, in July 2021 his family was selected into school development program of Sunshine Cambodia organization. This program provided him with school supplies such as books, pens, pencils, bags, and rulers every academic year and especially this program also provided him with a bicycle for riding to school. The program also supported his family food packages such as rice, noodles, fish sauce, soy sauce, sugar and milk. All of this support really encouraged and made him so happy, and it was a good assistant to help and improve his study and living conditions as well. The program team not only provided these materials to him and family, but we also conducted home visits with his family. During the visits time program staff always talked and encouraged him to study hard both at school and home and we shared and explained him and his family about the importance of education for the brighter future. The staff also shared with him child’s rights/participation, child’s safeguarding and hygiene during home visits. Yat’s elder sister said smilingly,“…I am very happy to see my brother goes back to school regularly and he enjoys studying hard at school even though my family’s living condition is hard. Sponsorship helps to improve my family’s livelihood and change my family's mindset in giving value to education, I would love to see my youngest brother to achieve his dream as a police officer in the future. So that’s why, now I stopped working and coming back home to look after and take care of my aunt…”. His aunt also added that, “…I am happy and proud of my nephew that he is working hard to improve his study both at home and school to achieve his dream in the future. I would like to say thanks to the Sunshine Cambodia Organization and all the staff, especially the donors who have been supporting my family and nephew’s education during my family’s difficult living situation”

“Drinking clean water keeps me healthy”

Phana was born on May 15^th, 2010. Now he is now 15 years old and lives with his mother and old grandmother in a small house in Khvet village, Theay commune, Baphnom district. He has one sister named Kimhouy. He is the first child in the family. Now he is studying in Grade 9 in Theay secondary school. His family’s living condition is not good at the moment, so his father always moved to work as a construction worker in Phnom Penh to earn extra income to support the family’s living and children’s education as well.

In the past time, Phanna did not take care of health and personal hygiene, and he also did not understand or apply the good drinking, living, and eating in his daily life. Thus, his health condition was not good, and he often got diarrhea and vomiting because his family did not have clean or safe water to drink every day. In general, his family always drank unsafe or unclean water such as raining water and wells water without filtering and boiling properly because at home his family did not have water filter for drinking every day. So that’s why he mostly got diarrhea and vomiting, and his family also spent much time and money for buying medicines and treatment. As a result, he could not attend school regularly because of bad health condition at that time.

However, everything changed a lot after he was selected into the school development program in July 2021. The program provides his family with hygiene materials such as toothbrushes, toothpastes, nail clippers, soaps and water filter, and we also provided study materials especially food packages to his family. All this support really encouraged and made him very happy, and it is also a good assistant in improving his health condition, hygiene, and livelihood for a large part of his family. In addition, the program team not only provided these materials to him and the family, but we also conducted home/family and school visits with his family. During the visit times we always encouraged him to study hard both at school and home and we also shared with him, his mother and grandmother on the importance of hygiene, good drinking, living and eating because our health is the most important thing for our living and life. At school program staff and teacher often shared and taught him and all the students on personal hygiene and how to drink safe and clean water for good health.

Now Phanna understands well the importance of hygiene and good drinking, eating and living. He also practices or applies it well into daily living both at home and school. He often washes his hands, cut fingernails or toenail once per week, takes a bath, and brushes teeth every day. He washes clothes and hair regularly specially; he always drinks clean or safe water every day both at home and school because now his family has water filter at home that provided by the program. So, he just refills the clean water and can drink any time. “…I am so happy because now my family has water filter at home, so I always have clean or safe water to drink every day. Now my health condition also is good if I compare with the last time. I do not get diarrhea and vomiting as before and I can attend school regularly. Finally, I would like to say thank you so much to program team who supported me, and my family especially provided my family water filter…”, said Phanna smilingly. “…before my family did not care of drinking clean and safe water, so we just drank raining water and wells water without filtering and boiling properly. As a result, my family members’ health was not good at that time and we often got diarrhea and vomiting. However, my mindset or thought has changed positively after program provided my family a water filter. We just refill raining water and wells water into a water filter, but we can drink safe and clean water at home every day with good health condition. Now my family understands very well about the importance of drinking safe and clean water for daily life and my family just bought a new water filter to replace a broken water filter that provided by the program…”, said Phanna’s grandmother smilingly.