Of course we started with our old Dâksoso school, to get ourselves back on track after a long holidays break. The school organisation presently works a lot better; enrolment has sky-rocketed from 149 pupils to 200 and absence rate has gone down sharply. I remember this school when it was on a clearly downward slope, with many children missing from the classrooms when we came for unannounced visits. The teachers also seemed weary and resigned, facing all the empty desks.
I sincerely think we’ve done an amazing work in the school and in the villages around. Our work on changing the mentalities is now bearing wonderful fruit, which is an amazing feeling for me and for all the AVEC team who have worked all year without a single euro for salary.
The poorest family of Dâksoso were present for the important day; we had been in contact with each of them the week before. I recognise all of them now; there was the woman who is always in a grumpy mood and who stays alone rather than blending in with the others. Her children have a though life. There was also the grand-mother with the radiant face. She walks with small steps and her seven grand children call her “mummy” because they have hardly ever seen their own parents.
There was a speech by the Homale municipality chief, by the school chief and also by myself. In English, I congratulated the teachers, the municipality authorities, and also the parents who are making a great effort, and without whom we wouldn’t be able to improve the children’s situation. All of this was simultaneously translated in Khmer.
The speeches were followed by the distribution of a school survival kit for each pupil, and of school uniforms and flip flop shoes for the 105 poorest children. Finally, we handed over the stock of school materials to the headmaster of the school. This way, we provide the school with the material needed to ensure its good work.
Every two months, we organise these schooling days, which have become a well known “event” in the region. There is music, applauds and hundreds of smiles which lighten up the children’s faces, those of the families and of the single mothers, who have been abandoned by the father of their children, and who live day by day not knowing what tomorrow will bring them.
