Rural areas in Cambodia have high incidence of poverty, with a myriad of social problems. With high incidence of natural disasters, government investment in the area is weak, owing to its remoteness. Problems of increasing population, increasing prices and lack of hygiene, access to water and medical treatment, and an increasing cycle of poverty have led to lack of education and problems within families.

Children and families live without education and food security, with no disease prevention, clean water, hygienic clothes, medical assistance or family reconciliation. Moreover, families are unable to afford to send their children to school, because of lack of transportation, remoteness of schools, and shortage of food security. Some families have to ask their children to stop study and help with the family income, such as through domestic labor, animal raising, garbage collection, soil digging, crop planting etc.

Our Home has made special efforts to focus on the children of these impoverished areas, and has set up a widespread scheme in Takeo whereby children and their parents can benefit from improvements to their lifestyle and opportunities. The focus is on enabling families to have access to opportunities, while at the same time focusing on awareness raising and training to ensure that inputs are sustainable and that families will in the future be able to pull themselves out of poverty. Some children are sponsored by godparents abroad; at the same time, all children are given the same chance to access that which they lacked before. For more information on assistance to parents, click here. In Kompong Speu, Sakarach III Home has been set up to shelter children in a similar manner to in Phnom Penh.

Education in Takeo

In 2006, the Takeo school project is providing assistance to 4,326 children in rural areas. The project enables children to go to local provincial schools by supplying them with the necessary equipment/funds etc., and offering them counseling on difficult issues and awareness raising on such issues along with their parents (through field workers along with the health care program). This project is able to have a great effect on children who have no opportunity to go to school as other children in the community can, because they are unable to afford school fees or cannot escape from domestic work/domestic violence/abuse. In addition, it offers counseling care, awareness raising and proactive education input to both parents and children, which can cover both prevention and protection.

Healthcare and sanitation in Takeo

Our Home has established a dispensary center in Takeo and mobile teams to access rural areas, to enable medical check-ups, vaccinations, treatment and referral to provincial/capital city hospitals in serious cases, for the use of all children in the Our Home sponsorship program. This includes provision of vitamins. At the same time, Our Home enables parents to attend awareness raising and training, to increase coverage of information and the ability to prevent diseases and to care correctly for the sick. Our Home is also in the process of establishing clean water wells in 10 locations, as well as providing wind power generation of electricity for the poorest families, which helps families ensure sanitation for their families. Services also ensure opportunities for income generation. Our Home makes efforts to make such supply sustainable, through the set up of user groups and community committees.