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Schools in Cambodia are traditionally not equipped for children with disability, but ChildFund Cambodia’s New Generation Schools are providing a safe environment where all students can reach their potential.

Nine-year-old Vireak was born with no left foot, making it difficult for him to participate in sports and games. Since he started studying at his local New Generation School, supported by ChildFund in cooperation with local organisation Kampuchean Action for Primary Education (KAPE) and the Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, life has become much easier.

His school is equipped with new infrastructure, and the staff and community have become more involved with students, through investments in quality teaching, school leadership and management, and community engagement.

“I am happy to see my school looking new, clean and equipped with books, materials and tablet computers. I am happy to learn and play around with all these new things,” Vireak says.

He has also noticed a change in the attitudes of his classmates and teachers. “I don’t feel any discrimination from my classmates nor my teacher,” he says. “I feel motivated and they are supportive. I like to go to the library to use the reading kit, the tablet and watch educational videos during break time.”

 

Growing up in a small village in remote Cambodia, Lima always wanted to be a teacher.

But, for a long time, school was the last place the 13-year-old wanted to be.

His classroom was filled with the putrid smell coming from nearby fields where Lima and his 200 schoolmates were forced to go to the toilet.

“Some students drop out of school as there is no place to defecate, so they don’t want to come to school,” Lima says.

“Before we had toilets, students would go the field, or along the school fence, making the school smell very bad. I didn’t want to come to school especially on labor day (a weekly day which, as part of the Cambodian curriculum, is dedicated to students cleaning the school) as it’s very dirty.”

For millions of children like Lima, the simple toilet can mean education and opportunity, by ensuring children don’t drop out too early. For girls and young women, this is particularly important.

In addition, without effective sanitation, communities become breeding grounds for disease, which disproportionately affects children.

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