Safe Learning Facilities Improvement Contributes To Children's Education

Damrey Yorktoek primary school is located in Sraetasok village, Chumrah Pen commune, Samrong district, Takeo province which is running classes for grade 1 to 6 students.

The primary school has 5 buildings with 25 classrooms. There are 11 teachers (5 female) and 622 students (262 girls) included 23 disable children (12 girls). Every year, the school faces strong wind while having old buildings and big trees around. The strong wind makes the old building roofs and tree branches to fall down. Students are worried when they go to school in the rainy season.

Safe school framework was selected and prioritized for implementation at seven primary schools in the fiscal year 2018 in Samrong2 Area Programme of World Vision International-Cambodia. Education and Life Skill project (Edls) has worked on all three pillars of safe school guidelines from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS), which also aligns with the ASEAN Common Framework for Comprehensive School Safety (CFCSS). In the fiscal year 2020, safe school is integrated with Community Engagement and Sponsorship Plan (CESP) project, and it is the third year of safe school implementation in Damrey Yorktoek primary school.

So far, both Edls and CESP projects are working closely with the Department of Education, Youth, and Sport (DoE) to equip capacity to teachers and school directors by conducting training on disaster management concept and Safe School Framework. In this Feb 2020, there were 45 school teachers from 7 target primary schools attending in training to improve their understanding based on pre and post-test evaluation result. The training promotes knowledge of school teachers to be aware of hazards and know how to reduce risks of each threat. Mr. Thiv Sophal, the school director, said that before he only knew that only natural hazards such as flood or drought could cause disasters, but now he realized that actually the environment in the school area such as old buildings and big trees also could possibly threathen our lives. Recently on the 13 Feb 2020, Samrong2 Area Programme cooperated with DoE and School Support Committee (SSC) to conduct school emergency response drill at 

Damrey Yorktoek primary school with a total participant of 374 people (172 female) which includes 10 teachers (5 female), 362 students (167 girls), 1 school directors, and 9 community SSCs. Mr. Thiv Sophal, the school director, said “I am so happy and satisfied with this school emergency response drill. It helps us to be ready for all risks of hazard in our school.” He added that his primary school plans to conduct this drill twice a year, every year, to refresh. Vatey, a grade 6 student, said that she had learnt a lot from this drill; mainly, how to keep herself safe during an emergency and where to find a safe place.

Samrong2 Area Program has strongly supported all target primary schools; especially, Damrey Yorktoek primary school to install safe learning facilities such as hand washing station, rainwater tank, latrine, fence, and steep slope for disable students. The facilities mentioned above help students to stay safe, clean and healthy because they can practice their hygiene regularly at school and it is the life skill which helps them to do the same at home. The rainwater tank provides the school to have enough water for use for the whole year and the water filter help students to have clean water for drinking for the entire day during weekdays. “We used to bring the water from our home, and it was hard to find the safe water at school to refill our bottle. Water filters help us have safe water all day.” Samphors, a 12-year-old girl, said.

In March 2020, CESP staffs worked with School Support Committee (SSC) to conduct Community Capacity Self-assessment (CCSA) for the purposes of reflecting their previous activities and planning and to support them to plan ahead for the next prioritized activities. Base on their group reflection during CCSA, they realized that their group structure is not strong enough because of inactive committee members. In a week later, the School Director organized a meeting with SSC to added two more key persons to become SSC members and shared the role of each SSC member and the group vision. The group has prioritized some activities for 2020 such as strengthening SSC structure, equipping capacity to School Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) about first aid kits and positive environment, publishing Disaster Preparedness and Response Plan (DPRP), and putting hazard signal at all hazard in school.