Breakfast in Knar School

Claudia and I left the guesthouse at 5 am in the tuktuk and drove through the darkness , into the forest for an hour. We arrived at the ghostly and apparently deserted school just as the sun was rising.

Claudia is a Swiss girl who visited Cambodia first in 2007 where she saw such heart rending sights of poverty and hunger that she set up her own charity in Switzerland called 'Eyes Open - help for the people in Cambodia'. Claudia wished to visit the school to observe and photograph the breakfast provision and record what was happening on her website: www.open-eyes.org (you will see there a wonderful video of Claudia's project with an English VoiceOver)

In the far corner of the school yard we could discern a flame and moved towards the kitchen area, an open air concrete stad with two huge fire holes for the enormous pots of rice and curry being prepared - all I could marvel at was what had been accomplished in positively medieval conditions while Claudia was delighted with the progress she saw, the concrete base was new and a huge improvement on the earth floor which used to be churned up into mud in the rainy season.

As light grew, children appeared from every corner, a few through the school gates and many more from the fields surrounding the school. They set to work immediately, quietly and purposefully, sweeping the classrooms and the schoolyard, clearing it of all the leaves in preparation for school assembly at 6.30 where, as you can see, they all lined up in class rows, one boy raised the flag and they sang the National Anthem before being addressed by the Principal (somethings never change, no matter where you are!)

Then the children moved, smallest first , cheerfully and quite orderly, over to the kitchen. Each carried a bowl and a spoon and each received a ladleful of rice and a deliciously scented curry
of fish and vegetables, they sat at tables dotted around the yard and ate happily with their friend - a truly lovely sight!


Claudia explained to me that the World Food Programme provides rice for the children for ten months of the year and her charity is now in a position to guarantee the annual funding of $20,000 to
the PLF (Ponheary Ly Foundation, for which I am working here). This money is now providing the important protein supplements of fish, meat and eggs and essential vegetables. School attendance has improved dramatically and also the alertness and concentration of the students. Many of the families also send in their toddlers for breakfast, all who appear are fed without question.

Other PLF initiatives operating here are the provision of school uniforms, a library and a dental health programme. As you can see from the photo, the toothbrushes must be kept in school to ensure the children have access to clean water, their brushes and mugs are kept on a special shelf in each classroom