Our students can hear gunfire from their classrooms
The border dispute between Cambodia and Thailand escalated to alarming levels yesterday morning with both sides firing heavy artillery not far from our school in the remote province of Oddar Meanchey (OM).
Terrified students in our classrooms listened to gunfire most of the morning and for many of them at the end of the day then had to walk towards the battlefield to get to their homes.
There have been reports of fatalities on both sides of the border, military and civilian and numbers of soldiers continue to grow in and around OM with the Australian government warning that land mines are being laid and tensions growing.
This comes on the back of a hard border shut down earlier in the month as relations between the two countries deteriorated and the eviction of Cambodian workers from Thailand was undertaken. The fall out from all of this is that hundreds of OM families are now facing a dire situation where they have no income and therefore no means of putting food on the table. This will impact almost all of the 550 students who attend our primary school so the situation is very close to home for our projects.
As long as the situation doesn't worsen and the safety of our team in OM is not under threat, we are going to push on with rolling out an emergency food aid program next week to hundreds of families.
We have budgeted around US$10,000 ($AU17,000) to provide this much needed support for at least the next three months and as this is from our precious general funds that we use for running our two schools, boarding house, etc. we would very much welcome any extra donations you might be able to make at this time.
These border skirmishes are nothing new to these struggling families, but they are a new and frightening reality for our current crop of 550 students who deserve to grow up in a safe and secure environment. We really hope the situation improves very soon.
We would love for you to consider partnering with us in an array of great projects across two of Cambodia's poorest provinces by making a tax deductible donation today (or any day). You can contribute directly into our Australian working account ‘Supporting Cambodia’ BSB: 015-600 Account: 1967 91878 (Please include your name and email address in the transaction for a tax receipt) or with a credit card on our donation page.
