The Cambodia Rural School Project
The Sean McDonald School
Although this school is named after him, I think Sean would have liked to remember all of the children of the world who have suffered. Why? Because he had a special place in his heart for those who needed help. Sean would often approach children and adults in wheelchairs and introduce himself. It mattered little whether they could speak with him, he just wanted them to know that he cared. When Sean’s short life tragically ended, Heaven welcomed the return of an angel that it had lent to the Earth eleven years earlier.
Sean’s dad, RichLUM VILLAGE
Lum village is one of the 240 villages in Cambodia’s remote northeastern Ratanakiri Province.
Home to ethnic minority Jarai villagers, Lum villageis located in O’Yadaov district, Poak Gnay commune, an area of jungle and mountains located 13km from the nearest national highway. It takes five hours to travel to Lum village from Ratanakiri’s provincial capital Ban Lung.
This village of some 154 families, or 778 people, have their own Jarai language and their own writing system.
In 1997-1998 a church organization began working in the village and since then most of the villagers have converted to Christianity. The transition from the villagers’ traditional animistic beliefs to Christianity brought conflict to the village which could only be resolved by the division of the village into two parts: Lum Koom (inhabited by non-Christians) and Lum Dou (inhabited by Christian villagers).
Today around 90% of the villagers are Christian while the remaining 10% still adhere to their ethnic minority traditions, beliefs and practices. Those that still follow the traditional ways have plans to move their village to a new location.
Lum villagers are very active and do not shy from change. The girls and boys of the village are very enthusiastic to gain knowledge and to see a new school established in their village. Some of the children have tried through their own efforts to learn Khmer language.
A new school in Lum village would help develop this younger generation of Jarai minority members and give them valuable human resources for the future. A school will give them educational opportunities they would otherwise have never had, in particular English language classes andcomputers.
The Lum villag school will include classes in English, computers, and an opportunity to use e-mail. The training will be provided by young teachers who graduated from the Future Light Orphanage in Phnom Penh. A village motoman will drive to the school each week and the studenrts’e-mail will be downloaded and brought back to Ban Lung town where they will be sent over the internet to their recipients.
Ensuring this school in jungle’s links to the internet, the school will be equipped with solar panels on the roof to provide sufficient energy to run a computer for six hours each day.
