Give Phnong Children the Gift of Education

Phnong Education Initiative student Sony lives among a cluster of 8 families in a remote village of 100 people. Her family home has walls of split bamboo and a corrugated tin roof which is beginning to rust. There is no documentation by the government that the 1.5 hectares of land they utilize belong to them, instead they are entrusted with the land by the head of their village.

Sony explains her academic goals, “I’m now standing between 8th and 12th in my class of 53 and I want to do better! On weekdays I attend school while staying at the dormitory at Oraing under support from Lotus Outreach. I come home here on weekends and help with farm work.” She then adds, “My plan is to stay in school until I complete year 12 and then work for my community employed by an NGO.”  

Sony has modern aspirations, but Phnong cultural conventions pervade her family’s daily life. As indigenous minorities to Cambodia, they speak the Phnong language, practice animism, and are highly superstitious. Four hours before we arrived, Sony’s older sister had given birth to a baby boy; her only medical assistance in the effort was the offering of a small hen and a vase of rice wine by a shaman midwife. Thankfully the birth took only four hours, and both mother and baby are healthy.

Living as they do, so isolated from modern Cambodian society and government, they are vulnerable to a variety of dangers. Illegal logging has plagued their ancient and sacred forests. Land-grabs by private companies have displaced many villages. The people are offered no services or representation by the Khmer government, and there are no public schools which speak Phnong.

Education through the Phnong Education Initiative can help these people avoid the dangers and difficulty imposed by outside society. The program provides primary learning to them in their own native language, teaching many children to speak, read and write Khmer; they also learn basic math and history. This basic learning will prove invaluable to the program’s 31 students as they strive to move forward from a position of severe marginalization.

In addition, 20 young Phnong people are being trained to be teachers to others through the Phnong Teacher Training Center.  After a two year course, the young students receive their certification by passing an exam at the Mondulkiri State Capital.  They then return to their home villages and pass the gift of education on to younger generations.

Sony’s family prepares rice for us via a traditional method, steaming it inside a hollow bamboo shaft over a bed of coals. The simplicity and honesty of such an ancient method is striking, and it seems a shame that people so generous and good could be left at risk of the societal dangers impending from outside their forested village.

With your contribution of $20, we can provide an entire month of teacher training to an eager Phnong student. Through the power of education, Sony and her family can preserve their traditional lives while being more empowered to fight the forces of marginalization working against them.

Thank you for supporting the Phnong Education Initiative!!

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Ms. Soar is studying to be a teacher in Steung Treng Province, but there is something special about her. This intrepid young woman is a Phnong-language teacher, and she is studying to teach the people from her homeland in her own mother tongue.

Having come from a house with bamboo walls and no door or windows, Ms. Soar knows the difficulty of being one of a rural, minority people marginalized by the broader society. As a young student, she left her remote home to study at the Orang Lower Secondary School about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) away. She did this as part of Lotus Outreach’s Phnong Education Initiative (PEI). Since then, her studies have taken her as far as the provincial capital to obtain teacher certification, so she can bring the fire of knowledge to the minds of other Phnong-speakers like herself.

A history of marginalization, combined with the kind of exploitation that usually accompanies it, has left the Phnong people largely without access to educational resources, minimal wealth, land, or infrastructure. The Cambodian public education system teaches only in Khmer, and so people who speak other languages are left by the wayside.

Ms. Soar made the journey to find her own education as a child, and since grade eight she had the dream of becoming a primary school teacher herself. With scholarship support, residence and materials provided by Lotus Outreach, she excelled in school, especially in the area of mathematics. The cost of supporting a secondary-school student with everything she needs to excel is only $250.00 per year!

It was very important that she study as hard as she did, because in order to become a teacher she had to travel to the Provincial Office of Education in the capital of the province. She had never been to a city as big as the capital before, and had never met so many different people before.

When she arrived to take her examination to become a teacher trainee, she found 160 other applicants vying for only 55 positions.  Thanks to her hard work and study, she passed the examination and was able to study at the Phnong Teacher Training Center!

Now the Phnong Teacher Training Center Dormitory in Steung Treng province is her home, and Ms. Soar is studying pedagogy with 19 other daring minority students. Each one of these people dreams of bringing the power of education to their own villages. Better education means better health, better earnings, better representation in government, and  

Ms. Soar has the support of her family, her immediate community, and even the license from the provincial government! Now all she needs is your support! Donating just $20 covers an entire month of teacher training for a minority student.

Thank you for supporting Lotus Outreach and the development of minority communities like this one!

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