After learning that some children were unable to attend public schools due to living in extreme poverty and lacking safe access to schooling, LWB decided to bring education directly to the kids through its Believe in Me schools. These LWB schools serve over 375 impoverished children in the rural villages of western Cambodia. This project will provide the support necessary for 150 additional waiting children to enter school and experience the gift of hope that only an education can provide.
Education is key to ending the cycle of poverty, and the people LWB serves in Cambodia face extreme poverty. In the region LWB serves, 36% of eligible children do not attend school. Public schools in Cambodia are free, but students must provide their own uniforms and books. Families living in rural villages or in extreme poverty are often unable to afford even the mandatory uniforms, much less books and the often required tutoring fees.
To serve the growing list of additional children, LWB requires $81,707 annually for school maintenance, utilities, internet, computers, school supplies, textbooks, uniforms, transportation costs for students, teacher salaries and insurance, hot lunches, the cook's salary, tuk tuk (two-wheeled carriages pulled by motor bikes) costs and driver's salaries, salaries for toddler and infant caregivers, and counseling costs and counselor training, thus providing access to quality primary education.
More than 150 new students will attend classes and progress academically, while 22 infants and toddlers, mostly from a landfill area, will attend onsite care in LWB's Early Childhood Development Center. Rather than laboring, children will learn and develop in an age-appropriate and safe educational setting with nutritional support, thus allowing students to continue to secondary school. Continued education helps prevent trafficking and breaks the cycle of poverty and exploitation in the region.
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