doing good from the comfort of your own home: cambodia edition

As I’ve mentioned before, I recently took a vacation. While the purpose of the trip was to visit friends and family and take a break from school and work, I also managed to include an educational component (yes, I’m a geek). Specifically, I got a crash course on the state of education in Cambodia.

A lot of people couldn’t pick out Cambodia on a map. If you’re older than 30, your knowledge of Cambodia might be limited to the Vietnam War. You might also be familiar with the Khmer Rouge. You might not know that our incursions into Cambodia during the former had a great deal to the do with the rise of the latter.

The Khmer Rouge period has had a deleterious impact on Cambodian society today. Not only is the population very young, it is also not well educated. This is due to both genocide and emigration, but also due to the selective targeting of the intellectual components of society. In addition, infrastructure was heavily damaged during the Khmer Rouge period, and many parts of the countryside still contain landmines.

Add these together, and providing education across the countryside becomes difficult. In addition, poverty (and the increasing price of food) means parents are unable to afford to send their children to school, which then makes them vulnerable to trafficking. Young girls are sent over the border to work the sex trade in Thailand.

In the midst of this, I met some engaged and ambitious people working to improve this situation. Both work for NGOs in Cambodia - Schools for Children of Cambodia is local, though its board of directors is from the UK. This Life Cambodia is also local, founded by an Aussie expat.

This Life Cambodia is currently providing fundraising and technical assistance to Self Help Community Center in Puok District. I had the opportunity to visit SHCC and see the project firsthand. Puok District is well off the grid, which means they receive no electricity or piped water. As such, they run on generators (which grows expensive as fuel prices soar) and store water in their homes. This, of course, puts community members at risk of a number of easily preventable diseases. It also means that the things we take for granted (prenatal care, refrigeration, school) don’t exist.

To combat these issues, SHCC is building a school. It is a massive undertaking, but one in which the community is fully vested. When the school is complete, it will have 3 classrooms, a library, and a computer room. It will also run on solar panels (which will also help power the community) , 2 fishing ponds (for the sustainable production of fish), and various organic gardens. The hope is that the school will be self-sufficient.

The proposed costs for this project are around $12000. This includes construction of the school, the land lease/purchase costs, and materials (ie, books, farm products). 100% of donations received through This Life Cambodia will go towards this project (unless otherwise specified).

For my personal finance visitors, it’s conceivable that $12000 is less than your total non-mortgage, non-school debt. If you’re like most people in debt, some of that probably came from poor decisions and frivolous purchases. And for that same amount, about 200 children can be provided an opportunity that will literally be life-changing. Education (even at only the primary level) reduces child and maternal mortality, and it reduces risk of gender-based violence and trafficking.

Here is where you come in. Chances are, you’ve got a plan to reduce that debt. It probably includes being frugal, saving, and spending wisely. So consider adding another dimension to your debt reduction plan - philanthropy. What goes around, comes around, yes? Even a small donation of $5 or $10 will go a long way for SHCC… and will barely make a dent in your own budget.

And for those of you not in debt, well, we can all benefit from a little good karma.

(pictures of the school site)