Human Translation

Literacy Brings New Hope to Ballangk

2010-04-08T20:29:00.000-07:00

For over twenty-five years, between the early 1970’s and 1998, Ballangk Commune was mired in conflict. Those of us working in the area today see the results of that conflict in many places but the most glaring is the lack of education, especially among women. While some men learned to read and write as soldiers for the Khmer Rouge or were able to study at the local pagoda after the war, many men and women were left illiterate, barely able to make out a few letters of the Khmer alphabet, completely unable to write. Today, grammar schools educate boys and girls over six, but there are still generations of women who cannot even write their own names. At the market, they are cheated by unscrupulous sellers. At the pharmacy they cannot check to see if the expensive medicine they are buying is expired. When the doctor gives them instructions how to care for family members, they cannot read them. Government pamphlets about healthcare, sanitation, education, all are lost on them. And for the many who cannot read, why should they value education? Why should they send their children to school?

Throughout HT’s work over the last few years, we have continually run into hurdles caused by this lack of literacy. From the very beginning when we were installing water filters for our red filter project to the creation of our Farmer Water User Group to manage our reservoir, the inability of participants to read manuals, record information or even read contracts that they needed to sign created huge obstacles for us. When we learned the Puk Krean, one of the community members whom we have worked with closely for years, could not even tell the difference between numbers 1 and 2, we knew it was time to implement a literacy program.

We decided to create three separate classes, one specifically for members of our Farmer Water User Group and two for women in the community who expressed interest in learning. After training three teachers from the villages, we began classes this week we over fifty students enrolled. The FWUC classes are small and are more like literacy tutorials with engineering facts and information about the reservoir incorporated into the curriculum. The other two classes are open to all community members. In Snar Sangkream Village to the north, we had to cap the class at 25 participants but were left with a waitlist of over a dozen students for next year’s class. Each student was charged a small amount, about 75 cents to show that they were willing to make an investment in their own education.

By the end of the year, these literacy classes will build the capacity of both male and female community members and will allow them to manage their new water source, take control of their lives, to keep from being cheated, and to keep their families safe and healthy.

Literacy Brings New Hope to Ballangk

2010-04-08T20:20:00.000-07:00