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”