Suffolk University 2019 Trip
The inaugural service learning trip to our school was a big success in January 2019. Boston students and professors from Suffolk University spent a day at our school while they were in Cambodia building a home via Habitat for Humanity.
Inspired by their experience at The Cambridge Cambodia School, the Suffolk students raised $1200 through a university-wide crowdfunding campaign to help the school in ways that they identified from their visit. With these funds they decided to donate an additional desktop computer to our computer lab, a significant number of books for the school library, and an outdoor table and benches for students to enjoy outdoor learning and recreation.
These helpful donations will be delivered to the school by the Suffolk group that plans to visit our school in January 2020. We are so grateful for their engagement and look forward to this continuing partnership.
D.R., Suffolk University undergraduate student wrote:
“Today was truly the greatest day of my life. I can’t even explain how moving it was. The second we get off the bus there was a parade of kids welcoming us with bouquets of flowers. They were treating us like celebrities, popping their heads around corners and smiling if we even looked in their direction.
90% of the kids in my class came to school today without eating breakfast, they have a limited supply of water that is going to dry up with the dry season, they have very view school supplies and books and some of these children live on their own and only see their parents twice a year if at all. One of the teachers at the school grew a garden to try and provide for these kids but that is still not enough.
Despite their hardships every single child had a smile on their face and was so loving and positive. These people come from nothing and still manage to find happiness! We got to help teach them some English vocabulary, read a book with them, and play in the school yard but they gave us to much more between the flowers, drawings, hospitality and and life changing memories.
Thanks to the amazing staff at the school these children are reminded that they should strive for success but most importantly happiness. The values the staff has instilled in the minds of these children is amazing. They come from nothing yet recognize that there are people who have it worse, meanwhile back home so many of us are blinded by the smallest inconvenience and victimize ourselves over small setbacks.
I have never met a more humble group of people in my life and I am forever thankful for every single person I came into contact with at that school and in their village!
