Daily Meals

This is where our food program first began: a daily breakfast or lunch, available to the +700 students at our four rural school locations. 

Two of the rural schools we support currently receive monthly food rations consisting mainly of rice, oil, salt, and then a very small amount of meat and vegetables from World Food Program. These allocations are a defense against starvation rather than complete nutrition – meaning that they do not provide enough protein and nutrients to keep students well or establish a strong and healthy base for their growing bodies. To combat this issue, and because often this is students’ only complete meal of the day, we greatly supplement these rations with extra meat, fish, and veggies. World Food Program does not provide food to anyone except government schools and hospitals, so at PLF’s own two learning centers where we serve food, PLF provides these meals from scratch.

This commitment to providing complete daily nutrition translates immediately into improved wellness, fewer trips to the hospital, and skyrocketing school attendance. Simply put, full tummies mean healthier and happier students, and parents are no longer faced with that impossible, gut-wrenching decision.

Food Banks

While our daily meals offer support across the entire population of our rural schools, our food banks have been developed with a laser focus on those students living in the direst food insecurity amid the most fragile family situations. The following initiatives are seeing great success in keeping students in class and on track for meaningful opportunities beyond school. Altogether, our food banks reach more than 180 student recipients every year, while also benefiting close to 400 extra family members. 

Knar food bank

Our first food bank was established in 2017, when we started noticing some of the most fragile members of the community were going across the border to work in Thailand illegally. This would involve the parents being away for months on end and usually leaving their children in the care of an elderly grandma: the children could not take care of her, and she could not take care of them. This is the perfect storm in which children can be trafficked, sold off to dodgy orphanages, or, at the very least, be removed from school and put to labor. In an effort to prevent those things from happening and ease the suffering of these families, we put in a Food Bank in the village to replace the “income” that a working 10-year-old might bring into the family – putting forth food in exchange for school attendance. The program continues to bring good results and keeps scores of children in school. 

Urban food bank

In 2014, we also extended this food relief program to the city as part of our urban wellness program. Siem Reap’s urban poor have usually migrated from the countryside in search for work and suffer additional challenges as a result, uprooted from their extended support networks and with no land to plant their own vegetables. Often, children are sent away from their family home to stay with a distant relative so that they have better chances of finishing school, which creates an extra burden on the host family. Offering food bank assistance to PLF Scholarship students means they don’t have to sacrifice study for labor and can fully concentrate on their education. 

Watch the video to meet one recipient 🙂

Chreav food bank

Our newest food bank was born out of a humanitarian response to the Covid lockdowns in 2021 – which risked some of the most marginalised families on the outskirts of Siem Reap being plummeted into starvation. The same socio-economic challenges are at play here as in Knar, with children often left in the care of elderly relatives who are doing their best to hold the family together, making their situations desperately precarious. This initiative supports more than 120 families who, in addition to monthly food drops also receive vegetables seeds so that they can sustainably produce their own healthy and nutritious food. Since schools re-opened after the pandemic, this initiative has been fully aligned with PLF’s mission, supporting these children to go to school in exchange for ongoing food relief for their families. 

Watch the video to meet one family 🙂

University food bank

The majority of PLF students heading to university must relocate from home in order to do so – living alone and away from their families for the first time. We give these students $70 per month as a living stipend, with an agreement from their family that they will contribute an extra $30 in cash or rice, which ensures the family are committed to their child completing university and so that the student can make ends meet. Most families can usually do that as their child is no longer an overhead at home. Then, in Years 3 and 4 of their degree, students are usually qualified enough in the field they are studying to find part time work related to their subject, and their lives suddenly become more manageable – for them, for us and for their families. But in the interim of those first two years, this stipend is a crucial stop gap. 

In the past, there have been students coming from families who could in no way give this support, and we sometimes had to deny our poorest students scholarships, which goes against the grain of our mission. Since a donor came to the rescue with an annual fund that enabled the creation of the University Food Bank, we have been able to support these students for sporadic periods to cover the shortfalls their parents cannot make up. This in turn means that we can focus on students’ academic ability and level of grit and determination to study, rather than the economic restrictions that had previously created obstructions to them receiving scholarships. 

Clean Water

We have major clean water actions in place at 4 rural schools we are supporting. Much of the groundwater in Cambodia is contaminated with E-Coli even as much as 20 meters deep, but fortunately the process of purifying this water is relatively simple. Each morning the teachers pump water up to a holding tank and then it is fed by gravity into ceramic filters which remove the E-Coli and any other organic contaminants such as viruses, bacteria, and sediment. The water filters through into a drinking tank for students and teachers to drink at school or bring home to support their families.

We encourage any member of the community to take clean water from school, as many Cambodians living in the countryside do not have access to such filters at their homes. We frequently see parents coming to school to haul home clean water and bathe young children, and this positive relationship helps to build interest and support from elder members in the village who might otherwise see no reason to show up to school.

Health

We have a trained school nurse at each school to provide basic first aid and prevent against infections and viruses. These nurses have been trained by medical professionals who have volunteered with PLF and provided various medical supplies for basic first aid. We keep a full stock of supplies ranging from bandages, eye drops, gentian violet and paracetamol to soap, brushes, toothbrushes and toothpaste in order to keep students clean and healthy.  When the school nurse finds students with serious ailments, they are taken to the Children’s Hospital for treatment and followup. We also coordinate with existing government programs to hold de-worming childhood vaccination clinics at all of the schools we support.

Because of the implementation of these basic wellness programs, we have seen a significant decrease in infections from minor cuts and bruises. PLF students come to school cleaner and with a basic knowledge of how to keep themselves healthy.

Sanitation

Installing proper sanitation facilities at the schools we support is especially important in a country where fewer than 1 in 3 Cambodians have access to bathrooms and handwashing facilities. However, sanitation is not only about having toilets at school but educating our students on the importance of using them. As you can imagine, the lack of access to sanitation facilities lays the groundwork for poor water quality and health in the countryside. Through workshops, lessons, and constant teacher support we work to build an understanding of how proper sanitation practices positively impact the community. Want to learn more? Check out this video made by one of our students about the lack of toilets in his village.

Hygiene

Forming proper personal hygiene routines at a young age is critical. Students arrive at school and wash their hands, brush their teeth after eating breakfast, and scrub fertilizer and other dirt off their legs from the walk to school.