From humble beginnings…

In 2006 more than 1,000 families were forcibly and illegally removed from their homes in the heart of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, and dumped in a wetland (now known as Andong Village) on the outskirts of the city, to make way for a large scale high rise development. With only a handful of personal possessions and nothing more than a plastic sheet to hide under, these people found themselves living in absolutely appalling conditions. Being so far from the city centre they had no access to work, no clean drinking water, no food and nowhere to shelter from the torrential monsoon weather. Life was tough before, but now it had become nothing short of inhumane.

A glimmer of hope

Their plight caught the attention of a well-educated and big-hearted Cambodian, Pastor Hang Abrahamsimting (Abe to his friends) and wife Sophin, who rallied to provide what support they could to the sea of suffering families.

They invested every last dollar of their own meagre savings to provide for their immediate physical needs (shelter and medical assistance) and set about laying the foundations for an ambitious plan to lift the villagers out of their poverty-stricken circumstances.

Andong Primary school is born

With Pastor Abe’s background of working for the Cambodian Government’s Ministry of Education, in 2007 he set about establishing a small primary school and offered free tuition to the hundreds of slum village children, however, very few families took him up on his offer. With parents who had never set foot in a classroom themselves there was little understanding of the value of a formal education and it wasn’t until he stretched the budget to include a free meal that a trickle of kids started to turn up each day.

Kangaroo Island drawn to Andong

In July, 2009, a group of Kangaroo Island residents visited Cambodia to participate in a volunteer humanitarian building program arranged by Habitat for Humanity. Towards the end of their stay and with some extra funds available, the KI group made a last minute decision to make a brief visit to Andong slum village and donate a quantity of rice and educational resources to Abe’s school. Abe and Sophin felt that this was an answer to their prayers as they had run out of both rice and money the day before the visit and had no idea how they were going to feed the students in two day’s time.

Brand new school meets growing demand

When word spread amongst the KI group, after returning home, that the visit to Andong had had such a profound impact on Abe’s little school, it was decided that our involvement should continue and a commitment was made to regularly support teacher salaries and student meals. As the offer of a free education was taken up by the slum village families the student population very quickly swelled from less than 50 to over 200 and it was soon apparent that the current facility was bursting at the seams. Kangaroo Island Supporting Cambodia (as we came to be known) was able to assist with the construction of a substantial six classroom brick building for Andong’s growing student population and within two years more than 400 youngsters would turn up each day. The number now exceeds 500.

Second school emerges from the jungle

With Andong School making great headway, Abe’s and KI Supporting Cambodia’s attention diversified to an extremely remote rural region in the north of the country called Oddar Meanchey (OM), notorious as being the Khmer Rouge’s last stronghold and also an area heavily land-mined during the Vietnam War.

A Kangaroo Island Supporting Cambodia delegation visited OM in 2010, making for quite the spectacle as none of the local villagers had ever seen westerners before.

Although the quality of life was markedly better compared to Andong, the absence of an education for the families’ youngsters was clearly taking its toll. With great vision from Abe and financial backing from KISC and other international partners a beautiful local hardwood constructed school emerged from the jungle and is now the pride of this mainly farming based community. At last count in excess of 550 students are receiving a free education and meals on any given day at Oddar Meanchey Primary School, the very first in their extended families ever to set foot in a classroom.

Building a better future

Kangaroo Island Supporting Cambodia has hosted numerous volunteer humanitarian trips to Cambodia to work alongside local villagers to build houses and school infrastructure, harvest crops and participate in cultural activities. It continues to be a very rewarding way to introduce compassionate Aussies to the fantastic work of Abe and his team, while providing some life-changing outcomes for the many thousands of people who benefit from the projects.

House of hope for high school kids

As more and more students successfully graduated from Oddar Meanchey’s Primary School the old school bus soon proved too small to transport them all to high school. Fortunately a large house that was purchased a few years before, and was located within walking distance of the high school, was able to be converted and soon became home to in excess of 50 students. More than just a roof over their heads, the OM ‘house of hope’ has become the one constant in the lives of these teenagers.

Here they receive free accommodation and meals, study mentoring and life skills like cooking and English lessons. For many of these students the ‘house of hope’ is their only home as their parents are forced to work over the border in Thailand, coming back to Cambodia just a handful of times each year. This holistic approach is reaping great rewards as our high school students regularly outperform their middle-class peers.

How do you get 40 students to high school?

In a truck of course. At the end of the 2014 school year a very significant milestone was achieved at Oddar Meanchey Primary School, with the very first class graduating and preparing to go to high school. The only problem was the public high school is 30km from the village and the local families had no way of getting their kids there each day. The solution was to purchase a small truck to transport the students to and from school and in between time it’s able to be used for income generating purposes.

Clean water a lifeline for villagers

You would think with all the rain that falls during the monsoon that drinkable water would be plentiful in OM village, but quite the opposite is the case. Much of the surface and upper ground water is seriously contaminated and has been making families extremely sick for decades. Thanks to the installation of a number of hi-tech wells that can tap into ground water over 100m below the surface, many thousands of villagers now benefit from safe drinking water year round and very close to their homes.

A helping hand for Kim Heng

There are so many amazing stories of transformation to come out of Andong and OM villages, but one that really encapsulates why these projects are so important is about a girl called Kim Heng. She first caught our attention in 2013, at the age of seven, when she was forced to withdraw from Andong Primary school after a heart condition saw her fainting up to seven times a day. A suitable medication was found and Heng soon resumed her education, albeit a couple of years behind her former classmates.

Just when things looked to be heading in the right direction for her family, an unfortunate accident claimed the life of her father while riding his pushbike home from work. With a mum unable to work because of a pre-existing mental health condition, Heng and her older sister Lai were facing a very uncertain future. But a number of generous Aussie families stepped up to the plate and offered to match the wages of her late father, something that continues to this day. In addition we provided a build team to construct a new house for Heng and her family in October 2018, to replace the previous one that only had dirt floors and was falling down around them.

Food the fuel for effective learning

In addition to providing a first class and cost free education to in excess of 1,000 students in Andong and OM villages, each and every student also gets a nutritious meal every day they attend school.

During periods when finances have forced the withdrawal of this initiative from one or both of our schools, the teaching staff have really noticed a significant backward step in student productivity and behaviour so it has become a very important project activity.

Striving for self sustainability

There’s no doubt the support of our international partners underpins every aspect of our Cambodian projects and is valued so very highly, however, our long term dream is to steadily increase the self sustainability of our in-country activities. One way we are hoping to do this is to further explore opportunities to undertake primary production initiatives on a sizeable piece of land we own in Oddar Meanchey province. We have experimented with some commercial sized crops in the past with some encouraging results and look forward to expanding on this further in the future when time and finances permit.

Tax deductibility status attained through partnership with GDG

One huge advancement for our project activities in Cambodia was a partnership that was formed with highly respected Australian non-government organisation Global Development Group in 2016. Our initial motivation was to attain tax deductibility status to reward donors for their contributions and to achieve a greater level of transparency and accountability for the way we operate.

What has resulted is far more than that. The level of support that is being provided by GDG not just in Australia, but also on the ground in Cambodia has been a great encouragement to our leadership team. Regular networking workshops, training programs and advocacy sessions have greatly improved the professionalism of our operations at every level and is creating a great foundation for the future.

The resultant J935N Supporting Cambodia project banner that we now operate under is formally recognised by the Australian and Cambodian governments and our reporting requirements ensures we stay focussed on our strategic objectives.

The Supporting Cambodia Team

  • In-country Director - Pastor Abe

    Our visionary leader on the ground, Pastor Abe is an inspiring leader with a big heart to help his fellow Cambodians.

  • Chairman - Rob Ellson

    Passionate about raising awareness for the plight of our amazingly resilient and grateful village families in Andong and Oddar Meanchey.

  • Andong Primary School teachers

    A very dedicated team of compassionate individuals driven to nurture and encourage our precious slum village children.

  • Supporting Cambodia School Teachers at Trampoung Primary School in Oddar Meanchey

    Trampoung Primary School teachers

    Devoted to re-writing the script for our remote Oddar Meanchey village students and giving back to their community.

  • OM House mentors - Chhay Song & Chek Toeung

    An amazing couple who mentor and encourage up to 65 high school students in this dedicated boarding house.

  • Oddar Meanchey support team

    Responsible for our farming operations and delivering emergency food aid to struggling families.