Wicked Local photo by Matt Thomson.
Dan Green, right, and Kate Boynton, world history teachers at Brookline High School, are spearheading a drive to raise $24,000 to build an elementary school in Cambodia through the American Assistance for Cambodia aid organization.
via CAAI News Media
By Neal Simpson/staff writer
Wicked Local Brookline
Posted Feb 04, 2010
Brookline — Staff and students at Brookline High School are helping to build a new school in Cambodia, a mission locals hope will lay the groundwork for a close bond between the town and a rural community in the Southeast Asian nation.
World history teachers Kathleen Boynton and Dan Green launched the Brookline Cambodia Partnership to raise about $24,000 to help fund construction of an elementary school in a rural area of nation of about 14.4 million people. Cambodia is roughly the size of Oklahoma, and surrounded by Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.
The fundraising will be matched with about $13,000 from the World Bank and Asian Development Bank, they said. The actual construction is overseen by American Assistance for Cambodia, which has built about 400 schools so far, said Boynton.
The people of Cambodia are still working to rebuild their country after decades of war and strife following their independence from France in the early 1950s. The country became notorious for the brutal Khmer Rouge regime that took power in 1975 and killed at least 1.5 million people through executions and mass starvation. The regime became infamous for its “killing fields,” where victims were forced to dig their own graves and then were executed.
A Vietnamese invasion in 1978 led to more than a dozen years of war, and fighting continued into the late 1990s, when the last of the Khmer Rouge surrendered. For most of the past decade, a coalition government has slowly taken hold, though progress is slow.
The country itself largely lacks potable water and other basic infrastructure, plus educational opportunities are limited. Boynton said even some Cambodian teachers aren’t trained in geography of their homeland, or of the larger world.
“The schools are in desperate shape in Cambodia,” said Boynton, who visited the country in 2008.
As a high schooler in the mid-1990s, Boynton heard Khmer Rouge survivor Arn Chorn-Pond speak about the struggles his people faced under that government, which eradicated many of the country’s artists.
Chorn-Pond, who lives in Cambodia and Lowell, is founder of Cambodian Living Arts, an organization dedicated to teaching art students rebuilding the country’s traditional art forms.
“His words had a huge impact on me,” said Boynton, who met Chorn-Pond personally in 2008.
Cambodia is a young country — more than half the population of nearly 14.5 million are under age 21 — and Boynton said they are working on an elementary school to help rebuild the education system.
The building Brookline High teachers and students are raising money for would serve several hundred kids in the equivalent of first through fifth grade, plus use solar panels to power Internet connections and other technology, said Boynton. The money would also help pay for an English teacher, books and other supplies.
The Cambodian government still has to select a site for the school, likely in a rural area of the country, she said.
So far, they’ve collected about $6,200, plus up to an additional $4,000 from a fundraiser at the Elephant Walk in Boston last weekend.
Green said students in their classes have been working on ways to collect money for the project.
After a school is built, Boynton and Green said they want to lead a group of Brookline High students to work in Cambodia, taking on teaching roles and some service work akin to that of Habitat for Humanity.
Boynton said they’d need School Committee approval before any trip left, and noted that Brookline needs to establish a relationship with Cambodian educators first.
John Hilliard can be reached at jhilliar@cnc.com.
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