Angus Lawson Memorial Trust reports from Cambodia
Wednesday, December 21, 2011 at 6:56PM After generously contributing nearly $27,000 this year to our Girls' Access to Education project in Banteay Meanchey, the Angus Lawson Memorial Trust
headed to Cambodia to meet the girls in October. Here are just a few impressions they brought back:
Residential Homes – "We visited three residential homes for girls attending high school. Their ages range from 16-22 because many have only attended school sporadically and continually have to restart the year they didn’t complete. Girls in residential housing must live over 8km away from the school and each are given a bike so that they can travel home at the weekends. The roads in Cambodia can be very difficult to travel on - at one stage our 4x4 had to be towed by a tractor through a particularly flooded stretch.
The houses are rented from local families and cost around US$40. In some of the houses, the owners continued to live on the ground floor with the girls upstairs, in another of the houses the girls lived alone. We had some concerns with this but apparently the owners are normally connected to the school, and in the houses where the girls live alone, the project has good relations with the neighbours and asks them to keep an eye out for any problems. It should be noted that almost all of the girls are over 16 years of age and not as vulnerable as younger girls might be. The girls also receive regular visits from the CWCC Programme Officers and almost all have access to mobile phones.
The houses were basic but seemed to be kept very clean with the girls dividing the chores amongst themselves. There were no beds, with girls using mats on the floor, but this seems to be the same as what they would use in their family houses. Most had electricity although one was dependent on paraffin lamps. All of the girls we met seemed very happy, giggling teenagers who enjoyed their studies. The majority wanted to further their studies and become teachers, so they could return to their home villages and help their communities. Nursing was also a popular choice."
University Residential Home – "We also visited a residential home for eight girls attending the local university situated just 100 metres away. Six of the girls had scholarships to study Korean language and literature (Korea is one of Cambodia’s biggest development partners). The two other girls were studying finance and banking. The owners lived on the ground floor of the house. As with the girls we had met in Phnom Penh, the girls each received a stipend of US$2.50 a day along with funds for tutoring and textbooks.
The GATE programme is clearly performing very well, with a dropout rate for 2011 of 0%. We were very impressed by everything that we saw. Lotus Outreach clearly has a very dedicated team, committed to ensuring that they are doing the best they can for each of the girls. There is a very effective model for monitoring and evaluation and the programme is flexible enough to continually evolve to meet the emerging need. Therefore if there is an opportunity for the ALMT to continue its contribution to this work then we would wholeheartedly support it."
We at Lotus Outreach would like to thank the Angus Lawson Memorial Trust not only for its financial support of the GATE project, but for its enthusiastic engagement with us on every level. For instance, members of the Trust didn't just go see the beneficiaries they support - they stopped by our SMART and CTC projects, too! We are truly fortunate for to have such a fantastic partner, and we look forward to a new year together in 2012.
Reader Comments (2)
From January 2010, due to the rapid and sizeable growth of the ALMT, the Trust will incur certain costs that will equate to no more than 5% of net income.
I appreciate the way Angus Lawson Memorial Trust functions. As far as it is a registered children’s charitable trust it provides help to the world's most marginalised children regardless of geography, ethnic background, class or religion.