Battambang, KH – How visiting schools assist families and schools – Sep 2024

This summer, visiting schools from UK successfully built vegetable gardens and constructed toilets with disadvantaged families in Battambang. They also engaged with local schools by facilitating educational play and study games. These activities fostered positive relationships between the visiting students and the community.

Their visits directly contributed to improving food security, hygiene, and cross cultural understanding.

Enhanced Food Security: The vegetable gardens provide families with fresh produce, improving nutrition and food availability.

Income Generation: Surplus vegetables offer families a source of income, promoting economic stability.

Improved Sanitation: The newly constructed toilets ensure better hygiene, reducing health risks and promoting community well-being.

Cultural Exchange: By leading play and study games, the students enriched the educational experience, fostering collaboration and cultural understanding between local students and their peers.

Community Engagement: Their visits strengthened relationships within the community, encouraging collaboration among local families and schools.

Challenges that now remain include:

Seedling Availability: The gardens are currently designed primarily for food supply; there is a need for more seedlings and crop diversity to ensure ongoing productivity and income.

Ongoing Support and Training: Families require continued mentoring and education on sustainable gardening practices to maintain and optimize garden productivity.

Water Access: Reliable irrigation is necessary, especially during dry seasons, to sustain the gardens and ensure consistent crop yields.

Resource Limitations: Economic challenges may prevent families from investing time and resources into garden maintenance, impacting long-term success.

The vision for building on the benefits of the overseas school visits includes.

Sustainable Expansion: Expanding the number of gardens and incorporating a wider variety of crops to enhance food diversity and income potential.

Comprehensive Training and Mentoring Programs: Developing workshops and mentoring visit on sustainable agriculture, financial literacy, and business skills to empower families in managing their gardens effectively.

Strengthening School-Community Ties: Continuously fostering relationships between schools and families through regular cultural exchange programs and collaborative learning activities.

Long-term Community Development: Establishing a model of self-sufficiency that allows families to thrive economically and socially, ultimately leading to improved quality of life.

By assisting our local partner Healthy Life to address these challenges and pursue the above vision, the student visits help create a lasting impact.