Local resident to speak on Cambodian school project

Oprah Winfrey has her school in South Africa and Green Valley resident Steve Strange, a retired IBM project manager, has his in rural Cambodia.

Strange is the featured speaker for the 10 a.m. Wednesday meeting of the Green Valley Forum at East Center. He will focus on “Cambodia and the School Project.”

For the last 14 years, the project has been providing clothing, vocational training, schools and materials for poor kids “in an area where money goes a long way,’ said Strange, a board member for the non-profit organization for the last several years.

“The charity has a stipulation in its bylaws that it will have no administrative expenses. As a result, everything from mailings to fund-raising, to travel to Cambodia to check on progress are paid for personally by board members,” Strange said.

The Cambodian School Project began in 1999, supplying school clothes and supplies to farm children to offset declining school attendance. Thanks to help from churches and individuals, the project was able to build a school in Poum Steung River Village.

Before the building of the school, may parents kept their children home to assist with subsistence farming.

Now that the village has a local school and the class schedule has been designed to fit the harvest, Strange said the school enjoys 100 percent attendance for 200 children in the small farm village.

The project has also been able to add a well that provides clean water to the school and the village, has planted trees, fenced the yard to keep out wandering water buffalo and built bathrooms.

Thanks to donations and the project’s commitment, the villagers built an outdoor kitchen in the schoolyard, where mothers now prepare breakfast from food donated by a Japanese charity.

Two other schools are under way.

Strange said most of the board members, like himself, have personal connections with Southeast Asia and Cambodia. He said the credo of the organization he serves is to “help the poorest families become economically self-sufficient and prepare poor rural children for economic survival.”

“The way of life of the families we help is disappearing as Cambodia modernizes, If they cannot read or write, these farm children will have little chance of escaping lifelong poverty. With literacy and the ability to learn , they have hope for economic survival in the much more modern economy they will live in as adults.” the project’s Web site site says.

Strange’s talk about the project is open to GVR members and their eligible guests.

Kathy Engle is a Green Valley freelance writer. Contact her at kdengle@earthlink.net.