From humble beginnings…

In 2006 more than 1,000 families were forcibly and illegally removed from their homes in the heart of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, and dumped in a wetland (now known as Andong Village) on the outskirts of the city, to make way for a large scale high rise development. With only a handful of personal possessions and nothing more than a plastic sheet to hide under, these people found themselves living in absolutely appalling conditions. Being so far from the city centre they had no access to work, no clean drinking water, no food and nowhere to shelter from the torrential monsoon weather. Life was tough before, but now it had become nothing short of inhumane.

A woman and a child standing by a small stream in an impoverished area with makeshift homes made of tin and wood in the background.
A woman walking through muddy water near makeshift houses with tarpaulin roofs in a flooded area.
A young girl with dark hair squatting on a dirt ground, holding a black cup, surrounded by trash and debris.
A man with a beard and a woman with sunglasses on her head standing outdoors in a grassy area with houses and trees in the background, smiling at the camera.

A glimmer of hope

Their plight caught the attention of a well-educated and big-hearted Cambodian, Pastor Hang Abrahamsimting (Abe to his friends) and wife Sophin, who rallied to provide what support they could to the sea of suffering families.

They invested every last dollar of their own meagre savings to provide for their immediate physical needs (shelter and medical assistance) and set about laying the foundations for an ambitious plan to lift the villagers out of their poverty-stricken circumstances.

A makeshift camp with tents and shelter covered by tarps and cloth, with visible cooking utensils and scattered belongings on the ground.
Two young boys stand near a large, muddy water pit in an open field, surrounded by scattered trash and debris, with a few houses and palm trees in the background.
Four children standing and crouching near a small window in a weathered wall, appearing contemplative or worried.

Andong Primary school is born

With Pastor Abe’s background of working for the Cambodian Government’s Ministry of Education, in 2007 he set about establishing a small primary school and offered free tuition to the hundreds of slum village children, however, very few families took him up on his offer. With parents who had never set foot in a classroom themselves there was little understanding of the value of a formal education and it wasn’t until he stretched the budget to include a free meal that a trickle of kids started to turn up each day.

Young students sitting at desks in a classroom, engaged in conversation.
A classroom with students in white shirts seated at wooden desks, teacher standing at the front, sign indicating '1st Grade' in English and another language, wooden structure with bamboo walls.
Two young boys sitting at a wooden table eating soup, with bowls of soup and lemon wedges visible. One boy is holding a spoon to his mouth, and the other is using a spoon to eat. The setting appears to be casual, possibly a kitchen or dining area.

Kangaroo Island drawn to Andong

In July, 2009, a group of Kangaroo Island residents visited Cambodia to participate in a volunteer humanitarian building program arranged by Habitat for Humanity. Towards the end of their stay and with some extra funds available, the KI group made a last minute decision to make a brief visit to Andong slum village and donate a quantity of rice and educational resources to Abe’s school. Abe and Sophin felt that this was an answer to their prayers as they had run out of both rice and money the day before the visit and had no idea how they were going to feed the students in two day’s time.

Three people standing in front of a banner, holding a large symbolic key, during a building aid event in Australia. The woman in the middle wears a black shirt, the man on the right wears a yellow polo shirt, and the young man on the left wears a red shirt and a black cap.
A woman in a black tank top and white pants painting bricks with a trowel on a building under construction.
Group of people standing behind tables filled with bags, books, toys, and food donations in front of a red wall with blue lattice panels.
A woman with sunglasses and a patterned blouse giving a thumbs-up next to a smiling boy in a checkered shirt, both posing for a photo inside a wooden building. In the background, a woman holding a girl and smiling.
Two young girls in school uniforms smiling at the camera, with one girl making a peace sign, inside a school hall filled with children.
Children playing outside a blue school building with a green roof, surrounded by palm trees, on a sunny day.
A blonde woman is leaning over a wooden school desk, pointing at a piece of paper with children in a classroom. The kids, wearing white shirts, are looking at she and the paper, with some appearing curious and others focused. More children are in the background, seated at similar desks, with some standing and talking.

Brand new school meets growing demand

When word spread amongst the KI group, after returning home, that the visit to Andong had had such a profound impact on Abe’s little school, it was decided that our involvement should continue and a commitment was made to regularly support teacher salaries and student meals. As the offer of a free education was taken up by the slum village families the student population very quickly swelled from less than 50 to over 200 and it was soon apparent that the current facility was bursting at the seams. Kangaroo Island Supporting Cambodia (as we came to be known) was able to assist with the construction of a substantial six classroom brick building for Andong’s growing student population and within two years more than 400 youngsters would turn up each day. The number now exceeds 500.

Second school emerges from the jungle

With Andong School making great headway, Abe’s and KI Supporting Cambodia’s attention diversified to an extremely remote rural region in the north of the country called Oddar Meanchey (OM), notorious as being the Khmer Rouge’s last stronghold and also an area heavily land-mined during the Vietnam War.

A Kangaroo Island Supporting Cambodia delegation visited OM in 2010, making for quite the spectacle as none of the local villagers had ever seen westerners before.

Although the quality of life was markedly better compared to Andong, the absence of an education for the families’ youngsters was clearly taking its toll. With great vision from Abe and financial backing from KISC and other international partners a beautiful local hardwood constructed school emerged from the jungle and is now the pride of this mainly farming based community. At last count in excess of 550 students are receiving a free education and meals on any given day at Oddar Meanchey Primary School, the very first in their extended families ever to set foot in a classroom.

A group photo of two adult Caucasian and Asian men and three young girls in school uniforms outdoors on a dirt area with trees and a building in the background.
Large group of school children and teachers posing for a group photo in front of a school building with a red roof.
Group of school children sitting at desks with hands pressed together in prayer or greeting, inside a classroom with wooden walls and windows.
A man and a young girl taking a selfie outdoors on a dirt field, with people and trees in the background.
Two men holding flags at a flag-raising ceremony, with young students gathered around in the background.
Children and adults gather outdoors at school. Two girls stand on a concrete platform, with one woman kneeling beside them and a man on the other side. The girl has her hands in a prayer-like gesture, and the group is smiling.
A man and a young girl planting a tree outdoors near a rustic, corrugated metal shed, with gardening tools and buckets.
A man wearing sunglasses, a cap, and a black sports polo shirt is holding a large bucket filled with dirt or sand, standing outdoors in front of a rusted metal wall and grassy area.
Group of people working together to level cement and construct a concrete wall, with construction tools, mud, and bricks in a neighborhood setting.
A group of four people, two children and two women, smiling and posing closely together outdoors. One woman is wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap, holding a camera. The background shows a rural setting.
Three people, including a woman holding a potted plant, are inside a building with white walls. Two other people are seated in the background, smiling and talking.
Group of people carrying a large wooden cross in a makeshift community area with shacks and power lines.
Group of people standing and kneeling on a dirt patch outdoors, some holding shovels and gardening tools, in front of a blue building and surrounded by green trees.
A woman and two young boys painting a blue fence outside, with a girl climbing a tree in the background.
Four diverse people smiling and holding power drills, standing outdoors in a community development setting.

Building a better future

Kangaroo Island Supporting Cambodia has hosted numerous volunteer humanitarian trips to Cambodia to work alongside local villagers to build houses and school infrastructure, harvest crops and participate in cultural activities. It continues to be a very rewarding way to introduce compassionate Aussies to the fantastic work of Abe and his team, while providing some life-changing outcomes for the many thousands of people who benefit from the projects.

People on roof of a blue wooden building under construction, with others walking below amidst debris and laundry hanging out to dry.

House of hope for high school kids

As more and more students successfully graduated from Oddar Meanchey’s Primary School the old school bus soon proved too small to transport them all to high school. Fortunately a large house that was purchased a few years before, and was located within walking distance of the high school, was able to be converted and soon became home to in excess of 50 students. More than just a roof over their heads, the OM ‘house of hope’ has become the one constant in the lives of these teenagers.

Here they receive free accommodation and meals, study mentoring and life skills like cooking and English lessons. For many of these students the ‘house of hope’ is their only home as their parents are forced to work over the border in Thailand, coming back to Cambodia just a handful of times each year. This holistic approach is reaping great rewards as our high school students regularly outperform their middle-class peers.

Two young men painting window frames in a wooden structure, one smiling wearing pink gloves, a cap, and work clothes, the other in the background.
Group of students in uniform posing outdoors in front of a building.
A group of students in white shirts and blue pants standing next to two men, one in casual clothing, inside a wooden room.
A woman and a girl are preparing vegetables outdoors on a wooden table, surrounded by baskets and containers for food.
People working on constructing or renovating a building, debris and bricks are scattered on the ground.
A group of people sitting at a long table in a small, dimly lit room with praying hands and heads bowed, engaging in prayer before a meal. The table has bowls of rice and other food items.

How do you get 40 students to high school?

In a truck of course. At the end of the 2014 school year a very significant milestone was achieved at Oddar Meanchey Primary School, with the very first class graduating and preparing to go to high school. The only problem was the public high school is 30km from the village and the local families had no way of getting their kids there each day. The solution was to purchase a small truck to transport the students to and from school and in between time it’s able to be used for income generating purposes.

Group of children in school uniforms sitting inside a decorated truck with a wooden structure on top, outdoors on a dirt ground.
Group of children in school uniforms smiling and raising hands in front of a white truck outdoors on a sunny day.

Clean water a lifeline for villagers

You would think with all the rain that falls during the monsoon that drinkable water would be plentiful in OM village, but quite the opposite is the case. Much of the surface and upper ground water is seriously contaminated and has been making families extremely sick for decades. Thanks to the installation of a number of hi-tech wells that can tap into ground water over 100m below the surface, many thousands of villagers now benefit from safe drinking water year round and very close to their homes.

A man in a white shirt and black pants washing his hands at a water pump in a rural area with several children and adults gathering around.
A man is operating a hand water pump while a group of children and adults gather around on a rural farmland, with wooden houses and trees in the background.
Group of diverse people outdoors in front of a blue building, smiling, some wearing hats and sunglasses, during daytime.

A helping hand for Kim Heng

There are so many amazing stories of transformation to come out of Andong and OM villages, but one that really encapsulates why these projects are so important is about a girl called Kim Heng. She first caught our attention in 2013, at the age of seven, when she was forced to withdraw from Andong Primary school after a heart condition saw her fainting up to seven times a day. A suitable medication was found and Heng soon resumed her education, albeit a couple of years behind her former classmates.

A woman standing outdoors with two young girls, all in casual clothes, in front of a wooden structure.
A smiling girl wearing a pink school uniform with a plaid collar and sleeves sitting on a wooden bench outside a rustic, open-air structure with laundry hanging in the background.

Just when things looked to be heading in the right direction for her family, an unfortunate accident claimed the life of her father while riding his pushbike home from work. With a mum unable to work because of a pre-existing mental health condition, Heng and her older sister Lai were facing a very uncertain future. But a number of generous Aussie families stepped up to the plate and offered to match the wages of her late father, something that continues to this day. In addition we provided a build team to construct a new house for Heng and her family in October 2018, to replace the previous one that only had dirt floors and was falling down around them.

A diverse group of seven people standing together outside a building, smiling for the camera. They include three young women, an older woman, two men, and a small child, dressed casually and appearing happy.
Outdoor rustic kitchen with wooden table, hanging pots, plastic containers, and a blackened metal fire pit with trash, set against a weathered wooden wall.

Food the fuel for effective learning

In addition to providing a first class and cost free education to in excess of 1,000 students in Andong and OM villages, each and every student also gets a nutritious meal every day they attend school.

During periods when finances have forced the withdrawal of this initiative from one or both of our schools, the teaching staff have really noticed a significant backward step in student productivity and behaviour so it has become a very important project activity.

Children sitting at long wooden tables eating soup inside a rustic wooden building with bamboo walls.
A woman serving rice from a large pot to children in an outdoor setting, with bowls stacked on the table, surrounded by children in school uniforms.
Two young boys in school uniforms eating soup at a table.
A woman is cooking food in a large pan outdoors, smiling and looking at the camera. There are other people behind her, one of whom is standing near a wooden post. The scene appears to be in a rural area with greenery and a pond nearby.

Striving for self sustainability

There’s no doubt the support of our international partners underpins every aspect of our Cambodian projects and is valued so very highly, however, our long term dream is to steadily increase the self sustainability of our in-country activities. One way we are hoping to do this is to further explore opportunities to undertake primary production initiatives on a sizeable piece of land we own in Oddar Meanchey province. We have experimented with some commercial sized crops in the past with some encouraging results and look forward to expanding on this further in the future when time and finances permit.

Group of people harvesting sweet potatoes and loading them onto a truck in a field
Green plants growing in a field, with soil visible in between the rows.
A person operating a blue tractor on a dry hill with sparse trees and two other people in the background working on the land.
Group of people working together in a large field, planting or tending to crops, with rows of soil and trees in the background.

Tax deductibility status attained through partnership with GDG

One huge advancement for our project activities in Cambodia was a partnership that was formed with highly respected Australian non-government organisation Global Development Group in 2016. Our initial motivation was to attain tax deductibility status to reward donors for their contributions and to achieve a greater level of transparency and accountability for the way we operate.

What has resulted is far more than that. The level of support that is being provided by GDG not just in Australia, but also on the ground in Cambodia has been a great encouragement to our leadership team. Regular networking workshops, training programs and advocacy sessions have greatly improved the professionalism of our operations at every level and is creating a great foundation for the future.

The resultant J935N Supporting Cambodia project banner that we now operate under is formally recognised by the Australian and Cambodian governments and our reporting requirements ensures we stay focussed on our strategic objectives.

Two young boys in school uniforms standing against a yellow wall near a window, one smiling at the camera and the other looking away.
A group of young children and their teacher inside a classroom, holding signs that read "Thank You" and "Bonita & Aleeya". The children are smiling and making heart shapes with their hands. The classroom has colorful posters and a whiteboard with writing behind them.
A group of men and women standing together indoors against a yellow wall, dressed in business casual and traditional clothing, smiling at the camera.
Group of people, including children and adults, gather outdoors under a tree, with rice bags and bottles of cooking oil on a wooden platform in a rural setting.

The Supporting Cambodia Team

  • A man with a beard and mustache smiling in a blue collared shirt standing outdoors with a school building and trees in the background.

    In-country Director - Pastor Abe

    Our visionary leader on the ground, Pastor Abe is an inspiring leader with a big heart to help his fellow Cambodians.

  • A group of school children sitting on red chairs outdoors, eating lunch. A man in a blue shirt and cap is sitting among them, smiling and talking to a girl.

    Chairman - Rob Ellson

    Passionate about raising awareness for the plight of our amazingly resilient and grateful village families in Andong and Oddar Meanchey.

  • Group of people standing together indoors, dressed in business casual attire, smiling for the photo, against a yellow wall.

    Andong Primary School teachers

    A very dedicated team of compassionate individuals driven to nurture and encourage our precious slum village children.

  • Supporting Cambodia School Teachers at Trampoung Primary School in Oddar Meanchey

    Trampoung Primary School teachers

    Devoted to re-writing the script for our remote Oddar Meanchey village students and giving back to their community.

  • Group of students and two adults standing outside in front of a building, waving and smiling, wearing school uniforms with blue skirts and ties, in a sunny setting.

    OM House mentors - Chhay Song & Chek Toeung

    An amazing couple who mentor and encourage up to 65 high school students in this dedicated boarding house.

  • Two people with a van loaded with bags of rice and supplies, on a dirt road with greenery in the background.

    Oddar Meanchey support team

    Responsible for our farming operations and delivering emergency food aid to struggling families.