How Angkor Kids Center Began
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ShareHow it all began? Angkor Kids Center was born without anything in its mouth. It is just standing on its decayed and unsecured feet with only the indigenous, volunteer, and dedicated team growing up from one single person! The infamous souvenir from the genocidal regime of Khmer Rouge is destruction to both humanity and public infrastructure resources. Somrong village where a young boy Samnang was living in had also one of the most seriously suffered. With a limited remaining resources permitted Samnang to finish his primary school. Due to the historical and cultural values, Cambodia start to be more glorious to the outer world, in parallel, English has become popular, especially for the people living in the tourist designations such as temples of Angkor areas. You might know that Buddhist monasteries are the place to survive the Cambodian culture and tradition. Due to the unavailable educational infrastructure around his village, Samnang had mobilized to live with the monks for his capital development. During the three years he could continue his governmental school, the religious study, and the dreamed skill which is ENGLISH. As regulated by the pagoda, Samnang had been ordinated to be the monk. The year of 2002 after his six month ordination, Samnang abandoned his monkhood to continue his study. To practise his English, as requested by the village at his community, Samnang initiated an English class under his brother’s house, and he got USD0.75 participatory support from the students’ families which it really permitted him to pay for his English school fee. How was the AKC being founded? In 2004, Samnang meet a German couple while he was working as a mototaxi driver, and taking them on tour around the temples of Angkor. His biography had touched the couple deeply, as a result they paid him to go to a good English school in the town center, supplied him with a basic living cost; furthermore Samnang has been paid a vocational course on Travel and Tourism in 2005-2006. After his graduation, he was offered a job in one of the most famous tour operator based in Siem Reap. To get himself familiar with the new city life atmosphere, Samnang forced to give up his teaching in 2006. Fortunately, one of the outstanding students, Ms Salet Nhey took her teachers’ role and moved the class to her house with a fundamental support from Plan Cambodia Organization. She had done the best job, consequently in 2008, she passed a scholarship of a restaurant and bar in a vocational training school similar to Samnang’s, and in the following year she got a job working for a luxury cruise from Cambodia to Vietnam and vice versa. Again, Salet forced to leave her class, and her younger sister, Salin NHEY has been volunteered to replace. Under Salin’s direction, the project has improved a lot from time to time. 2009 was the year of initiative of founding Angkor Kids Center (AKC) as a community-based center! After three year successful job, Samnang could spare his time to help the center and named it to Angkor Kids Center as a present to his German adopted family, his own family and the whole community itself. With the German team including the couple who had give him a bright life, AKC has developed itself significantly. Apart from the primary project of the English Language Classes Project, it has also initiated an environmentally-friendly project called the AKC Green Project.
Latest Updates
Monthly Meeting to Promote The Parent Education Program at Trapeang Bourn Village
Jul 29, 2022 | 04:38 AMDoE officer cooperated with the community pre-school management committee and teacher in the target villages of Caring for Young Khmer (CYK) to organize a meeting to promote the parent education program linked to the community pre-school and to set up a network group for monthly meetings with parents and care givers. (Trapeang Bourn village, Svay commune, Samki Meanchey district and Trapeang Pring village, Aphiwat commune, Teuk Phos district, Kampong Chhnang province) #CYK_positiveparenting
Parent Education Program Link to the Community Pre-School
Jul 26, 2022 | 06:54 AMWith the cooperation of PoE and DoE officers in Kampong Chhnang province, Caring for Young Khmer (CYK) conducted the first training course for core trainers at CYK’s target village on "Parent Education Program link to the Community Pre-school" from 16th to 21st July 2022 at Kampong Chhnang POE. The purpose of the course is to enable the trainer to have the knowledge and skills to further educate the parents of the children so that they understand the roles and responsibilities in managing the program and set up the structure for the parental education program link to the community pre-school. During the course, they produced some materials for the program too. At the end of the session, they discussed and decided a plan for further implementation. #CYK_capacitybuilding
Meet PEPY Volunteer Tommy: Bringing New Techniques and Ideas to the Learning Center
Jul 14, 2022 | 03:47 AMSince May 3rd the PEPY team, especially our English Learning Project (ELP) Teacher, Soury, has had the pleasure of working with Tommy. Tommy is PEPY’s first long-term volunteer since the pandemic, arriving in Cambodia after working as a teacher in Myanmar. He is originally from New York and has over 20 years of teaching experience. He spent 13 years in Thailand, 6 years in Myanmar, and now over 6 months in Cambodia. He applies his extensive experience as an English Teacher by supporting our project’s curriculum, scoring quizzes, identifying textbooks for the class, and any other related tasks that fit our students and the teacher’s needs. As a foreign volunteer, he provides a lot of added value and learning opportunities to the students. The ELP Teacher shared that he helps the students and staff learn about cultures outside of Cambodia, gives our youth the opportunity to learn under different teaching styles, and works hard to use a lot of energy in the class. Having a native English speaker in the ELP allows the students to familiarize themselves with a different accent and increase their English listening and conversation skills. In addition, our ELP Teacher has shared that Tommy has helped improve her teaching skills by showing her how to incorporate more humor into the class. She believes that more volunteers like Tommy will help advance the ELP, whether they join us in person or online! Tommy initially learned about PEPY through PEPY partner Bill Taylor (from SE Asia Foundation). When he first joined PEPY, he took the time to adapt and observe our practices as an organization and learn about Cambodian culture. PEPY students come from a financially disadvantaged background, which is similar to the students he taught in Myanmar. He found in both cases that students were very eager to learn English and committed to the sessions. After a month at PEPY, he found that he really enjoys the enthusiasm of the students and the gratitude they have when receiving each lesson. We love the mottos that he has taught to the students: “Mistakes are okay, we learn from our mistakes” “Use it or lose it” Going forward, we hope to have more volunteers like Tommy join the ELP and other PEPY projects in the future, helping us increase our skills and providing more unique learning opportunities to the students. We thank Tommy so much for his time and energy, ensuring that our youth will be prepared for numerous job opportunities after leaving the Learning Center. If you are experienced as a teacher and would like to learn about volunteering for PEPY, we invite you to reach out to us via email at: [email protected]
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