The Cambodia Rural School Project
The Sralao Tong Nippon
Foundation School
Mr. Vath Bunthoeun is a 36 years old farmer living close to the Sralao Tong Nippon Foundation School.. He is married with three children; one of them is studying at the school. He owns six hectares of land; most of the land is planted with orange trees.
| His background: | I was born in one of the villages in Bar Veal district, 50 km away from here. I only moved to this village two years ago. I left my home village because there I had no land to cultivate. I needed land to grow fruit and cash crops, so I came here.
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| On his community: | Most of the villagers here are poor. We have enough land to grow crop, but we have no money for seeds, food or hired labor. Some businesspeople lend us money with annual interest rates of 100 per cent. Some of us borrow from them. The soil is fertile and we grow corn, soybean, and sesame and the harvest has never failed. However, most of our income from the agricultural products is spent on the interest of our loans. So we remain poor. This is our problem.
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| On the new building: | Because we have a new school building in our village, the children no longer need to go to another village to study. I think the school will reduce some of the expenses of my child’s education. I would like to do my utmost to take care of the school building, and keep it as a heritage for the younger generations. I consider the school an educational center that produces human resources for the development of my village, my community.
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