Education for 300 Urban Poor Children

“… Drinking safe water keeps me healthy.”

Sreylin was born on December 03, 2009. She is now 15 years old and lives in Khvet village, Theay commune, Baphnom district. Sreylin is studying in 7th grade at Theay secondary school. Sreylin is also a single daughter in the family. Currently, Sreylin lives with her old grandmother in a small house in their homeland because her parents moved to work as a construction worker and garment factory worker in Phnom Penh due to the difficulty conditions.

In the past, Sreylin did not take care of her health and personal hygiene, and she also did not understand or apply good drinking, living, and eating in her daily life. Thus, her health was not good, and she more often got sick and had diarrhea, because her family did not have clean water to drink every day. In general, Sreylin’s family always drank unsafe water such as rainwater or well water without boiling properly because her family did not have a water filter at home for drinking every day. So that’s why Sreylin mostly got sick, such as diarrhea, and her family also spent a lot of time and money on buying medicine. As a result, she could not attend school regularly because of a bad health condition.

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

Now Sreylin understands well the importance of hygiene and good drinking, eating, and living. She also practices or applies it well in daily living, both at home and at school. She more often washes hands, cut fingernails or toenails once per week, takes a bath, brushes her teeth, washes clothes and hair regularly especially she always drinks clean or safe water every day, both at home and school a because now her family has a water filter at home and school, so she just refills the clean water any time. She doesn’t spend much time and money on buying firewood and gas for boiling water anymore. Sreylin also shared with a smiling face that “… I am so happy because now my family has a water filter at home, so I always have clean or safe water to drink any time. My health condition is also good if I compare it with the last time. Now I do not get sick more often, such as diarrhea as before, and I attend school regularly. Finally, I would like to say thank you so much to the program team who supports me and my family, especially providing water for my family…”