HISTORY

The Samart School project was conceived in 2008 when Mr. Song Samart, a monk in the temple at the time, began raising funds to build a school for his community. After raising money for three years he met with fellow monk Mr. Chhan Chon who told Song that the school could be built on his family’s land in Spean Kaek Village, which neighbors Song’s home village of Kok Sruk.

Mr. Song met with the community leaders around Spean Kaek and after receiving their approval, began building the school on December 5th, 2011. Fifteen days later on December 20th, 2011 the original building for the school was completed. It has three classrooms and is still the primary building in which class is held.

When the school opened, the faculty included Mr. Song and two other local Khmer teachers, Mr. Hin Bunhak and Mr. Preh Oak, who taught English class, which is still the school’s primary subject. About one month later, the school’s first volunteer arrived, a 21 year old man from England name Mark who spent one month teaching and helping Mr. Song raise awareness. This included making posters and displaying them around Siem Reap to recruit additional volunteers.

In February 2012 a volunteer named Samuel White arrived at the school and helped to build walls on the school building, enclosing and separating the classrooms. He also installed lights in the classroom, allowing night classes. At the end of the month, Mr. White’s friend Payman Makhmalbaf donated money to the organization Caring Sharing Cambodia to have a ground well built next to the school. These events greatly improved the school’s structure, creating a more focused environment for classes and providing water for the students to drink and wash with.

In early March a volunteer named Hildr Vogelesang from Holland came to the school and taught classes with Song for two months. Chris Barnard, an American, came to join her after two weeks. They both helped Mr. Song open a bank account for the school creating a financial foundation for it to operate from. They made a 500 USD donation to help things get started. The first thing this money was used for was to build walls, so the kids could also go to school in the rain season.

To recruit more volunteers Mr. Song talked to tourists in Siem Reap and at Bakong Temple where he stayed at the time and asked them if they could volunteer at the school. These efforts were met with some success and intermittently volunteers came to teach at the school. Throughout the next year, in addition to many volunteers helping to teach the classes at the school, several volunteers made key contributions to building the school, fundraising and also increasing it’s presence on the internet.

From August 10th-14th, two English women, Libby May Small and Faye Louise Power came to volunteer and afterwards created a web blog for the school, providing easy access to information for former and future volunteers and donors.

The next major contribution came from a Dutch man named Joeri Van Ast who while volunteering raised money to build a new classroom and an industrial strength storage cabinet to keep important materials for the school. This building has a concrete foundation and hardwood walls making it the most durable structure at the school. It is currently used for teaching computer classes.

In January 2013 Mr. Song met with his old family friend Mr. Bobby who works for CTEP (Cambodia-Taiwan Education Center), a Taiwanese non-profit organization that provides educational resources in the Siem Reap area. Bobby agreed to provide the schools with computers from CTEP, which are now used to teach computer classes in the new building. Mr. Oak, one of the original Khmer teachers, now teaches the computer classes receiving training from CTEP.

A bit later, a volunteer from Sweden named Sonja Karlsson, came and volunteered and then set up a Facebook page for the school under the name “Chhan School”.

Soon after, Nina Miljus, a volunteer from England raised funds to build an additional classroom that is attached to the computer classroom, making a total of five classrooms at the school. A friend of Nina’s, Diego Orlandini, from the United States, donated money to purchase an additional industrial strength cabinet for storing the computers.

On June 6th 2013 an Australian man named Jack Daughney provided the school with an enormously generous donation that allowed Mr. Song to achieve his long term goal of purchasing the land the school is built on so it is no longer necessary to rent the land. This is an important step in the next major goal of the school, to register it with the government and then register as an official Non-Governmental Organization. Achieving this status will give the school national legitimacy and greatly improve its fundraising abilities.

Over the days of August 7th through August 9th, a former volunteer from New Zealand name Paul returned with much of his family, and together with the members of the local community and the other volunteers they repaired the classrooms in the main building. This included putting up sturdy plywood walls in between the classrooms and replacing some of the deteriorating bamboo thatch walls on the outside of the building. Additionally Paul’s sister, and other family members have been painting the new walls to provide beautiful murals containing educational materials like the English alphabet.

There are many tasks to accomplish to improve the school and create a more organized and inspiring learning atmosphere for the students, but the great strives that have been made by various volunteers as well as the local community are extremely encouraging. Mr. Song hopes to take the next major step soon and register the institution as a government school and an NGO. The NGO will operate under the title of Education for Cambodia Organization, or E.C.O.

The current fundraising priority is raising money to pay the salaries of local Khmer teachers. After hiring two more local teachers in September 2013, the school now has four teachers in addition to Mr. Song to work year round in each class. This will provide a stable presence in the classroom for the students and a chance to develop a solid curriculum for the school. It has however, increased the monthly operation expenses by several hundred dollars, creating a greater need for fundraising.

What will be the next major event in the school’s history? Maybe it could be your help and contribution. If you or someone you know would like to help with this endeavor please contact Mr. Song.

Contact Information:

songsamart@yahoo.com / samartschool@yahoo.com

www.samartschool.blogspot.co.uk

Facebook: songsamart / chhanschool