CORDE Community School

These pictures were taken by Theary on her trip up to Oddar Meanchey Province, in January. She borrowed my camera and i thought i'd share parts of it. Of course, some of you don't know Theary yet. Theary is a good friend of mine. She and i worked together on Gems International School from the beginning. We spent many a nights together translating the training manual into Khmer, many a moments crying over the challenges we're facing with enrolment, teachers, etc. However, she's now working mostly with CORDE...which is good for her. And part of her efforts with CORDE is the community school (1 now, but planning to have more).

Community schools are for areas where there are no schools, or where there may be schools but there aren't teachers (because it's too far away from the homes of 'government-trained' teachers)...whatever the reason, where children do not have access to basic education. When a community expresses their interest in supporting a teacher and facilities for making sure their children have education to CORDE, CORDE provides training for the teacher and assistance to set up an adequate learning environment. Here's how they look like:

The school building

First batch of students and their teachers

Learning through TPR (Total Physical Response)Songs and games

One-to-one attention that children need

Guess what that quote says?..."Where there is love, nothing is too much trouble.."
My dear friend, Theary. She's also Auxiliary Board member and was preparing for a deepening for the delegates of the National Convention (2008) when i took this picture.