Hands-on help for Cambodia
School project offers education in caring, sharing
By Victoria Cheng
Globe Correspondent / May 11, 2008
Four letters may not be a lot, but it's enough to underpin a $20,000
fund-raising effort to build a school in rural Cambodia. Calling
itself the Cambridge School for Cambodia (and Camb-Camb for short),
the campaign brings together students, businesses, and several groups
across the city, some with deep ties to Cambodia and some who have
always called Cambridge home.
more stories like thisRachael Harkavy, a fifth-grade student at the
King Open School, started learning about Cambodia in January when she
and her peers in the school's fifth through eighth grades joined the
effort by hosting weekly penny drives. She reels off statistics about
the country that highlight how Cambodia compares with the United
States. "It's about the size of Oklahoma and has the population of
Pennsylvania," she began.
Camb-Camb is raising money to send to American Assistance for
Cambodia, a nonprofit organization run by former Newsweek journalist
Bernie Krisher, that has built more than 400 schools across the
country.
"We'll be the 405th school, but it's not enough," Harkavy added.
"Massachusetts is about half the size of Cambodia and has about 1,000
schools, so that just brings into perspective how many schools
Cambodia needs."
The planned Camb-Camb school will be 40 miles north of Phnom Penh and
accommodate between 200 and 400 students. Krisher started the
initiative in 1993 and negotiated a memorandum of understanding with
the World Bank that called for it to match whatever money he raised
for the project. The cost of a school, Krisher said, "is actually
about $30,000, and the donor only pays about $13,000." By contributing
an extra $7,000, the Cambridge School for Cambodia will be able to
equip its school with an English teacher, solar panels for a computer,
and Internet access, he said.
Longteine de Monteiro owns the Elephant Walk restaurants, which
feature French and Cambodian cuisine at locations in Cambridge,
Boston, and Waltham. The Cambodian native explained that outside
assistance is sorely needed in the country, which was devastated first
by the spillover effects of the Vietnam War and then by genocide
during the brutal rule of the communist Khmer Rouge in the 1970s.
"The government now doesn't really do much to help education," she
said, "so all the foundations from outside of the country who go there
and build whatever the country needs, especially schools and
hospitals, are very important."
When Camb-Camb contacted de Monteiro to explore opportunities for
collaboration, she agreed to host a benefit dinner at her North
Cambridge restaurant early last month.
"We served the meal that we usually serve on New Year's Day in
Cambodia," which is April 15, de Monteiro said. "We did chicken curry,
Salade Cambodgienne, and beef short ribs with green coconut juice."
The event raised enough money to bump Camb-Camb's funds to the $13,300
mark and also gave attendees like East Boston resident Selena Sang,
whose family is Cambodian, a chance to revive memories of childhood
traditions.
"My parents live in California," she said, adding that she had not
eaten a traditional Cambodian New Year meal since moving here. The
event also gave de Monteiro an opportunity to showcase a prominent
part of Cambodian culture - its cuisine - and the desire to teach
Cantabrigians about this small country perched on the southeastern
peninsula of Asia.
At the King Open School, Rachael and fellow fifth-grader Eliza Klein
have made it their goal to involve younger students in the project.
"In the library we have a display with recipes and books and how to
make origami elephants," Klein explained. "We don't want to be
collecting money from people and having them say, 'Oh, we're sending
it across the world to do blah blah blah.' We want them to really
understand it, so that then they'll feel closer."
Before classes one day earlier this month, the girls helped set up an
origami table at the school entrance, along with an empty water jug
inviting donations of spare change. Sixth-grader Brianna Lavelle
patiently guided the younger students through the steps of folding a
colorful square of paper into the shape of a crane.
"See all these points here?" she said, indicating the triangular
sections where the corners met. "Point it down and fold it like this,"
she instructed, pressing the edge of a flap against the table.
Eventually, the students managed to fold their pieces of paper into
diamond-shaped creations that they then bent to create long necks and
pointed tails.
"What is this for?" asked 6-year-old Bianca Byfield, as she handed
over her crane to be placed on a large branch of a tree that will
eventually hold 400.
"Every crane represents one child who will go to school in Cambodia,"
said Lavelle's mother, Risa. "And all of Cambridge is helping raise
money."
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